Home Tech Trump frees Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht after 11 years in prison

Trump frees Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht after 11 years in prison

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Trump frees Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht after 11 years in prison

In fact, those murder-for-hire allegations dissuaded the first Trump administration from granting clemency to Ulbricht: The White House considered releasing Ulbricht in 2020 but ultimately rejected the idea due to the alleged role of violence in the case, according to a former government official involved in the process who spoke to WIRED on condition of anonymity.

Since then, however, the Trump administration has changed its stance on the Ulbricht case, in part, perhaps, due to its embrace of the libertarian cryptocurrency community, for whom Ulbricht has become a martyr and a cause célèbre. At the Libertarian National Convention held in Washington, DC last May, then-presidential candidate Trump promised to commute Ulbricht’s sentence “on day one” if he was re-elected. (In the end, the first day passed without mercy for Ulbricht, even as Trump pardoned more than a thousand participants in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol, although Trump ally Elon Musk promised in a publish in X Monday night that “Ross will also be released”).

It is not at all clear what role Ulbricht will play in the free world. Even in his statement to the judge at his sentencing hearing in 2015, Ulbricht never fully acknowledged the harm inflicted by Silk Road drug sales and still shows little remorse for his actions in his public posts to X, Jared Der -Yeghiayan, a former member of the Homeland. The Security Investigations agent who infiltrated the Silk Road undercover as part of the case against Ulbricht told WIRED in November

“The thought of him being released doesn’t bother me in the least,” says Der-Yeghiayan, who now works as head of strategic intelligence at cryptocurrency tracking firm Chainalysis. “It bothers me that there is now a perception that he did nothing wrong, that he doesn’t recognize the facts of the case.”

However, among some criminal justice reform advocates, Ulbricht has become an example of excessive sentencing, especially because he was technically charged with nonviolent crimes. “Ross has served more than enough time. He has been a model prisoner. He is a first-time non-violent offender. It poses no safety risk to the community,” Alice Johnson, executive director of the justice reform foundation Taking Action for Good, told WIRED in November. Johnson, spent two decades in prison for drug trafficking before Trump commuted his life sentence in 2018. “I believe Ross’s case will pave the way for many others who have been unfairly imposed these draconian sentences to return to prison.” home. “

On Tuesday night, Ulbricht’s supporters celebrated his freedom and expressed gratitude to Trump for his clemency. “Words cannot express how grateful we are,” reads a tweet from @Free_Ross, an X account dedicated to the decade-plus effort on Ulbricht’s behalf. “President Trump is a man of his word and he just saved Ross’s life. ROSS IS A FREE MAN!!!!!”

Additional reporting by Joel Khalili

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