“I’ve had my youth, and I know you must take away my middle years, but please leave me my old age. Please leave a small light at the end of the tunnel.” In 2015, with his sentencing hearing looming, Ross Ulbricht begged for a glimmer of hope. Today, at age 40, he is free.
On January 21, one day into his second term, President Donald Trump granted a full pardon to Ulbricht, the founder of the Silk Road online marketplace. He was 11 years into a double life sentence without the possibility of parole after being convicted on charges connected to commerce on the dark web platform, including drug trafficking, computer hacking, and money laundering. Notably, he was not convicted of actually selling drugs himself.
By punishing Ulbricht as if he personally distributed narcotics, the government set a dangerous precedent for internet platforms and personal liability in the digital age. Pressure to hold platform operators liable for everything from misinformation to sex work has grown in the past decade as Ulbricht and his supporters—especially those in the libertarian and cryptocurrency communities—fought for his freedom. Ulbricht has long served as a warning, a caged canary in the coal mine.
Ulbricht spent over a year in federal custody before his trial, during which prosecutors accused him not only of operating Silk Road but also of plotting violence against those who crossed him. Although a separate indictment in Maryland charged him with “attempted witness murder,” those charges were quietly dropped after his conviction. Critics, including Reason‘s Brian Doherty, argue the government used these murder allegations as a tactic to prejudice both the court and the public, leaving a lasting impression even without enough evidence for a conviction. This layering of extreme charges as a negotiating tactic and leverage for the government is extremely common, and too often goes unremarked in less salacious cases.
For years, the prisoner’s mother, Lyn Ulbricht, has been his most passionate advocate. “He’s staying strong, but it’s very tough to keep that sense of who you are. I think people ultimately can be crushed by that,” she told me when I spoke with her for a 2018 Reason interview about his life in prison and his lengthy appeals process.
The severity of Ulbricht’s sentence has long been a subject of outrage. Judge Katherine Forrest imposed a grotesquely disproportionate sentence, particularly given that Ulbricht was a first-time offender convicted of nonviolent crimes.
The case against Ulbricht was not just about crime and punishment—it was about power. Forrest called Silk Road “terribly destructive to our social fabric,” and offered this critique: “It wasn’t a world of ultimate freedom. It was a world of laws that you created, they were your laws. It is fictional to think of Silk Road as some place of freedom.” But a marketplace governed by its own rules isn’t the same as a state, as Ulbricht knew well. He certainly never held the power to do to others what the U.S. government did to him.
While the Silk Road prosecution was framed as a necessary crackdown on illicit online markets and the judge depicted the harsh sentence as a noble expression of the rule of law, the government’s handling of the case was riddled with misconduct. Two federal agents involved in the investigation, Carl Mark Force IV of the Drug Enforcement Administration and Shaun Bridges of the Secret Service, were later convicted of stealing huge amounts of bitcoin from Silk Road during the investigation. These agents not only embezzled funds but also manipulated the case from the inside—undermining the integrity of the prosecution.
There were also serious concerns about due process. Ulbricht’s defense team was prevented from presenting crucial evidence, including alternative suspects for the identity of “Dread Pirate Roberts,” the pseudonym used by Silk Road’s operator.Many believe Ulbricht was not the sole person behind the platform and that others who operated under the same name were never prosecuted.
The government’s response to discussions surrounding Ulbricht’s case also raised free speech concerns. In 2015, Reason received a subpoena demanding the records of individuals who had posted critical comments about Forrest’s sentencing of Ulbricht. Shortly thereafter, a gag order was issued, prohibiting Reason from discussing the matter or even acknowledging the existence of the subpoena for two weeks until the clearly unconstitutional order was vacated, an obvious attempt to silence discourse about Ulbricht’s mistreatment at the hands of the law.
It was that mistreatment that Trump highlighted in his announcement of the pardon. “The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me,” the president posted on Truth Social. Trump has also called for the death penalty for drug dealers, so his messages on prohibition are mixed, to say the least. But clearly he identifies with Ulbricht on some level.
Critics of the pardon argue that Silk Road facilitated the sale of dangerous drugs, potentially leading to harm or even death among users. While it’s undeniable that illegal substances were sold on the platform, it is essential to place this issue within the broader context of the failed war on drugs—and on Ulbricht’s intentions, which were clearly driven by the goal of harm reduction.
Prohibition has historically driven drug markets underground, where safety is compromised and violence is rampant. By contrast, Silk Road’s marketplace introduced harm-reduction mechanisms absent in traditional street-level drug markets. Buyers could leave reviews, rate vendors, and ensure they were getting what they paid for—a level of transparency unheard of in the offline illicit drug trade.
In this sense, Silk Road was more akin to a regulated marketplace than the chaotic and often violent black market it sought to replace. But Forrest harshly rejected such arguments. “Harm reduction focused on the user is missing the point,” she wrote, chiding Ulbricht for making “a privileged argument.” Whether one sees Ulbricht’s actions through the lens of naive idealism or dangerous recklessness, it is clear that his prosecution was about more than just drug sales. It was about crushing an alternative model of economic organization.
Silk Road was arguably the first real test of bitcoin as a medium of exchange, and while the subsequent decade has not played out precisely as the most bullish crypto enthusiasts hoped, it has certainly become clear that bitcoin is good for much more than just drug deals. (Reason even pays writers in bitcoin from time to time.)
Ross Ulbricht’s release does not erase the years he spent behind bars or the precedent his case set for digital marketplaces, but it is a rare moment of reprieve in an era of relentless government expansion. It is also a victory for the Libertarian Party, which pushed hard for his release since his conviction and especially during the final stretch of Trump’s presidential run.
In the evolving landscape of digital commerce, personal liberty, and criminal justice, Ulbricht’s case remains a stark reminder of the risks posed by unchecked prosecutorial power and the need to defend freedom—even for those who make controversial choices.
In the letter he wrote before his sentencing, Ulbricht argued that any sentence short of life without parole would give him “an excuse to stay healthy, an excuse to dream of better days ahead, and a chance to redeem myself in the free world before I meet my maker.” At last, he has that chance.
The post The Case Against Ross Ulbricht Was About Government Power appeared first on Reason.com.
