Federal prosecutors want a long jail term for Ross Ulbricht, the creator of Silk Road — an online marketplace that allowed the buying and selling of illegal drugs.
Silk Road was one-of-a-kind website that blended encryption and drug trading with an online business model. The website was launched in February 2011, and the FBI shut it down in 2013. Ulbricht was arrested in October 2013 as the website's pseudonymous founder "Dread Pirate Roberts."
Prosecutors have convicted Ulbricht for seven criminal charges that include money laundering conspiracy and drug trafficking, which has a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life. Prosecutors suggest that Ulbricht's crime requires a sentence over a mandatory minimum of 20 years.
Prosecutors have sent a 16-page letter to Judge Katherine B. Forrest in Manhattan, asking for the maximum prison sentence for Ulbricht for running Silk Road. Federal prosecutors argue that Ulbricht should get a long-term jail sentence as his website made it very easy for people to sell and buy drugs.
The letter also brands Ulbricht as the kingpin who operated the global digital drug trafficking website. When he was arrested, the FBI recovered his laptop and found Ulbricht had $18 million in his Bitcoin account from Silk Road commissions.
The prosecutors also allege that the illegal website also resulted in the death of six people who suffered overdoses after purchasing drugs on Silk Road.
The court document filed recently details the deaths of individuals who died due to drug overdoses. A 27-year-old Microsoft employee who was working in Bellevue, Washington was one of the people who died of a drug overdose. An Australian boy of 16 years old, who was living in Perth, also died due to a drug overdose.
"Ulbricht bears responsibility for the overdoses, addictions and other foreseeable repercussions of the illegal drugs sold on Silk Road," wrote the prosecutors.
Joshua Dratel, Ulbricht's lawyer, wrote on filed court documents that the deaths should not be considered in determining Ulbricht's sentence. Dratel argues that it is not possible to confirm that the six people died due to drugs purchased from Silk Road.
Dratel agrees that Ulbricht created the illegal website but states that he left it within a few months. However, he was lured back to the project by the website's real operator when the FBI closed the website.
The prosecutors also claim that Ulbricht went to extremes to protect his online drug empire. He was also involved in hiring a hitman on a minimum of five occasions and paid the hitman $650,000 from his Bitcoin wallet. Authorities have not confirmed if the hitman killed anybody per Ulbricht's instructions.
Judge Forrest will hand down Ulbricht's sentence on Friday, May 29.
Photo: Chris Potter | Flickr
