Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road, has already spent six years in prison and still has 34 years and two unconditional life sentences to serve in New York unless the petition led by his parents and sister results in a decision of clemency by Donald Trump.
At this point, almost 201,000 signatures have been collected, and the path towards the 300,000 does not seem that far off.
https://t.co/2hEsnJkKqr pic.twitter.com/2MmuChRZeO
— Ross Ulbricht (@RealRossU) August 28, 2019
The petition asks the President of the United States, Donald Trump, to release Ulbricht on the grounds that “Ross was not treated fairly and his sentence is draconian. Justice was not served”.
The Ulbricht case is very complicated and, according to Ross’ parents, “full of abuse“. The matter involving the two corrupt federal agents is also quite strange, one of whom was later imprisoned for stealing $359,000 in bitcoin (BTC).
From 2011 to 2013 Silk Road, the website on the Dark Web created by Ross Ulbricht, generated profits for the sellers on the platform, amounting to $214 million, many of which came primarily from the sale of different drugs.
Most supporters, including Ross’ lawyers, claim that this has not held back the online drug trade and a paper published in 2015 estimates that this sector still generates between $150 and $180 million in revenue each year.
The Ross Ulbricht petition – which is still ongoing – has attracted the attention of several stakeholders in the cryptocurrency industry, including Litecoin founder Charlie Lee, Roger Ver and billionaire Tim Draper.
Ross’ mother, Lyn Ulbricht, has shown her commitment at a Blockchain technology conference in Toronto, where she firmly stated that President Donald Trump will grant clemency to her son.
Ulbricht wants the same result. In March, he demonstrated in a recent tweet his willingness and desire to turn the remaining years into “freedom“.
