Former U.S. President Donald Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the Silk Road online marketplace, who was serving a life sentence for running the platform where over $200 million US worth of illegal drugs and other illicit services were traded using bitcoin.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the Silk Road underground online marketplace. Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison for running the platform where drug dealers and others conducted over $200 million US in illicit trade using bitcoin. Trump stated in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, that the pardon was 'full and unconditional' and that he called Ulbricht's mother to personally inform her of the news.
Ulbricht was released from a federal prison in Arizona late on Tuesday following Trump's announcement, according to federal Bureau of Prisons records. Ulbricht's clemency attorney, Brandon Sample, stated that this decision 'offers Ross the opportunity to begin anew, to rebuild his life, and to contribute positively to society' after enduring over a decade of incarceration.The Silk Road website, which relied on the Tor network for anonymous communication and accepted bitcoin as payment, was described by prosecutors as a global, black market bazaar used by over 100,000 people to buy and sell $214 million US worth of illegal drugs and other illicit services between 2011 and 2013. Prosecutors alleged that Ulbricht, who operated under the alias Dread Pirate Roberts, orchestrated the site's operations and solicited the murders of individuals who posed a threat to Silk Road. However, they also stated that no evidence exists to suggest that any murders were actually carried out. Ulbricht admitted to creating Silk Road, but his defense lawyers argued that he handed the website over to others and was later lured back to become the 'fall guy' for its true operators. They claimed that Silk Road was intended to be a 'freewheeling, free market site' that empowered individuals to make choices in their lives while maintaining privacy and anonymity. Ulbricht himself expressed this sentiment at his sentencing hearing in May 2015, stating that he wanted 'to empower people to make choices in their lives and have privacy and anonymity.' A federal jury in Manhattan in February 2015 found Ulbricht guilty of charges including distributing drugs through the internet, conspiring to commit computer hacking, and money laundering. U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest, who sentenced Ulbricht, remarked that 'What you did was unprecedented' and that 'in breaking that ground as the first person, you sit here as the defendant having to pay the consequences for that.'Trump's administration is anticipated to significantly reverse course on the regulatory crackdown on the cryptocurrency sector that occurred during former Democratic President Joe Biden's tenure. Trump, just hours after his inauguration, pardoned over 1,500 defendants convicted of sentences up to 22 years for seditious conspiracy, assault, and other offences related to their participation in the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. Fourteen other convicted individuals saw their sentences commuted.
SILK ROAD ROSS ULBRICHT DONALD TRUMP PARDON BITCOIN CRYPTOCURRENCY JANUARY 6 RIOT
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