![]() ![]() The online black market was shutdown in October 2013, when authorities seized the website and arrested Ulbricht at a San Francisco library. No evidence exists the murders were carried out. Prosecutors said Ulbricht, who grew up in Austin, Texas, took extreme steps to protect Silk Road, soliciting the murders of several people who posed a threat. The website relied on the Tor network, which lets users communicate anonymously, and accepted bitcoin as payment, which prosecutors said allowed users to conceal their identities and locations. They said Ulbricht ran Silk Road under the alias Dread Pirate Roberts, a reference to a character in the 1987 movie “The Princess Bride.” Silk Road operated for more than two years, allowing users to anonymously buy drugs and other illicit goods and generating over $214 million in sales in the process, prosecutors said. “This was not some disinterested do-gooder,” he added. Serrin Turner, a prosecutor, said Ulbricht was like any drug other kingpin, having fantasized about becoming a billionaire through his criminal enterprise and taking extreme steps, including soliciting murders, to protect it. “I wanted to empower people to make choices in their lives and have privacy and anonymity,” he said. Outside of court, Joshua Dratel, his lawyer, promised an appeal, calling the sentence “unreasonable, unjust and unfair.”Ī sniffling Ulbricht, who had admitted to creating Silk Road but denied wrongdoing at trial, told the judge before being sentenced that, contrary to what the prosecutors argued, he did not build Silk Road out of greed. Ulbricht stood silently as Forrest announced the sentence, which also included an order to forfeit $183.9 million. “And in breaking that ground as the first person, you sit here as the defendant having to pay the consequences for that.” ![]() “What you did was unprecedented,” Forrest said. ![]() District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan after a federal jury in February found him guilty of charges including distributing drugs through the Internet and conspiring to commit computer hacking and money laundering. Ross Ulbricht, 31, who faces up to life in prison after a federal jury in Manhattan found him guilty in February of charges including conspiracy to commit drug trafficking, money laundering and computer hacking, is seen in this undated handout photograph courtesy of Lyn Ulbricht. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |