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Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

nytimes.com

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Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#461

Post by pakled_engineer »

tptacek wrote: post #448
pakled_engineer wrote: post #441

The guy who ran "The Farmer's Market" AKA Adam's Flowers who was pre Silk Road and busted during Operation Adam Bomb was only given 10yrs for hustling MDMA/Acid/weed, and ran an impressive smuggling operation where he had US resellers pick up ocean freight shipments, and his plea has him serving time in a Netherlands prison. The difference is he didn't make his black market political, which unfortunately Ross did. He…

No part of the allegation that Ulbricht commissioned a murder appears to have been "thrown out"; that accusation was a formal predicate (the second listed "overt act") of the conspiracy charge for which he was convicted. Can someone help me understand why people keep suggesting that this murder-for-hire allegation was dropped? That does not at all seem to be the case.

I didn't read the new indictment, I assumed from articles they dropped all those charges http://www.dailydot.com/crime/silk-road-murder-charges-ross-...

http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/29/technology/silk-road-ross-ul... "Prosecutors had charged Ulbricht with commissioning six murders-for-hire but those charges were dropped"

The overt act is there in the new indictment they changed after dropping the 6 murder for hire charges, guess it's my fault for trusting journalists who said nothing about it http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao-sdny/legacy/...

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#462

Post by tzs »

Nadya wrote: post #40
smhenderson wrote: post #13

That seems way too harsh to me. I have strong opinions on the US War on Drugs and it's failure to meaningful deal with drug use/abuse in the USA. And I feel even worse about how it's spilling out into the rest of the world as we go "global" with everything. I can't say I know every detail of the case but I don't recall anyone getting killed or even hurt by Mr. Ulbricht so in my mind the punishment does not fit the cr…

See: Portugal Instead of imprisoning for drug usage - provide treatment and rehab. It's cheaper and has better results. One could argue culture differences in drug usage, but that looks like an attempt to "knock it before you try it". That's without going into how broken the US prison system is! See: privately owned prisons that require a quota to be filled [0]. [0] http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/article/criminal…

> See: privately owned prisons that require a quota to be filled

That's not quite correct. The contracts do not require that a certain number of prisoners be kept in the prison. They require that a certain number be paid for. The contracts are essentially of the form that the state will pay $X to house up to Y prisoners, and $Z/prisoner for any prisoners beyond Y prisoners.

Since private prisons are only a small fraction of the prisons, the people that should be most annoyed by this are the employees of state run prisons. If crime goes down in a state and they want to close a prison to save money they most likely will make sure to fill the private prison first (since they are already paying for it) and cut staff at the state prisons.

(NOTE: this does NOT mean I'm saying private prisons are fine--just that contracts that guarantee a minimal payment regardless of occupancy are not necessarily bad. Private organizations tend to have less oversight than state run organizations, so it would not at all surprise me if the private prisons have staff that are not as well trained or as accountable as state prison staff. If I were setting up a prison system and it was going to allow private prisons, I'd probably require that the warden be appointed by and employed by and answer to the state, not the prison owner, and has the ability to fire private prison employees who are in jobs that involve direct interaction with the prisoners. I'd also require penalty clauses in the contracts that reduce payments if conditions are not at least as good as those required of state prisons.

It would be interesting to look at the strength of whatever public employee union represents state prison employees in each state, and see if there is a significant correlation between that and state use of private prisons. I'd expect weaker unions would increase the chances of private prisons.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#463

Post by dang »

Nadya wrote: post #443
Spooky23 wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm capable of reading, thanks. Drug policy and private prisons are completely irrelevant. This dude operated a massive organized criminal enterprise, and was willing to kill to protect it. Frankly, whether he was selling stolen stereos, cocaine or moon rocks isn't really relevant in the eyes of the law.

Apparently you aren't - seeing as your original response to me had absolutely nothing to do with what I and the parent were talking about and instead was a strawman attack against things that were never said.

These comments are breaking the HN guidelines. Please be civil.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#464

Post by kidgorgeous »

I wonder why people assume Ulbricht tried to have someone killed? History has proven time and time again that police and prosecutors will fabricate information to get a conviction or even get bail removed. I wouldn't put it past the prosecution and DEA to stoop to such low-handed tactics.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#465

Post by emodendroket »

kidgorgeous wrote: post #464

I wonder why people assume Ulbricht tried to have someone killed? History has proven time and time again that police and prosecutors will fabricate information to get a conviction or even get bail removed. I wouldn't put it past the prosecution and DEA to stoop to such low-handed tactics.

The best information available suggests that he actively solicited hitmen. Yes, I suppose if you take the position that "absolutely anything incriminating is fabricated" then you could claim he didn't.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#466

Post by emodendroket »

lesigh wrote: post #442

Let's just ruin a mans life so maybe we'll deter %.0000001 of a billion dollar drug industry. Why does the United States continue with this nonsense "War on Drugs"? Could it have anything to do with the for profit prison system? Giant militarized police force? Booming civil asset forfeiture? For a country that prides itself on freedom and fairness, why create a system that punishes for doing what they want with their…

Let's just kill a man to protect my darknet Web site.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#467

Post by jsprogrammer »

hebdo wrote: post #272
jsprogrammer wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

12 steps has a pretty poor record.

I'm not an expert here actually; do you know what could be considered a more reliable program? I find addictions very interesting, especially given the discovery of the FOSB protein.

Anecdotally, there are many compounds/experiences that seem to be highly effective (even to the point of eliminating withdrawl symptoms): cannabis, ayhuasca/DMT, ibogaine, and other psychedelics.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#469

Post by srdev »

copsarebastards wrote: post #423
srdev wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a journal proven beyond a reasonable doubt to have been written by icelancer that includes them discussing how they paid to have a person killed? And did you also confirm that the payment for that supposed hit was transferred? Because these facts were shown at Ross's trial. Its alleged because he hasn't yet been specifically convicted on these charges, which are still pending in Maryland.

Do you have a journal proven beyond a reasonable doubt to have been written by Ross Ulbricht that includes them discussing how they paid to have a person killed? Because a jury has yet to decide whether the government has such a thing, too. My point is, we haven't seen the evidence, a jury hasn't decided about the evidence, why are we talking about this? We can't pretend that Ulbricht's sentence for drug trafficking…

> Do you have a journal proven beyond a reasonable doubt to have been written by Ross Ulbricht that includes them discussing how they paid to have a person killed?

Yes. That was literally a critical piece of evidence at the trial. The defense tried to claim that it wasn't Ulbricht's and failed.

Take a look at the post I'm responding to here. A lot of people in this thread are acting like the murder for hire thing is just some crazy rumor when there is a really compelling body of evidence behind it. Reasonable people can disagree on whether it should be a factor in the sentencing in the drug trial, but to act like there isn't a very high probability of Ross having attempted murder is.. Well it's not reasonable.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#470

Post by akshatpradhan »

tzs wrote: post #285
zanny wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the key point. He is going to spend the rest of his life in prison, pretty much, for running a website. Not for hurting anyone, not for even threatening to kill anyone - those charges weren't a part of his conviction - but simply by enabling the exchange of drugs he apparently should be locked away forever. Go Team 'Murica....

Are you implying drugs don't hurt anyone? Even the most ardent proponent of full legalization usually acknowledges that many drugs are very harmful--they just believe the people should be free to do things even if they are harmful to themselves. I generally support decriminalization or even legalization, but I would be reluctant to allow internet sales. I'd require sales to be through licensed dealers and in person,…

If drugs hurt people, it should be treated as a medical issue and not a criminal issue.
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