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Ross Ulbricht Is Back Online, Tweets For First Time Since Being Arrested And Incarcerated For Life

By Inquisitr Staff
Published on: 13:15 PST, Aug 5, 2018

Ross Ulbricht, AKA “The Dread Pirate Roberts,” or “DPR,” that allegedly founded the original darknet market, Silk Road, has not been online since he was arrested and incarcerated in October 2013. The charges against him were money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic fraudulent identity documents, and conspiracy to traffic narcotics. Last year, the Second Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld his conviction, and this year the Supreme Court declined to hear his case. For Ulbricht, now 34 years of age, the only chance he may ever have to experience freedom again is via a Presidential pardon, which is in part why he has returned to the online world.

According to Bitcoin Magazine, there were many irregularities in the handling of evidence and the subsequent trial Ulbricht faced. To this day it is alleged the FBI agents currently serving prison sentences for theft of Bitcoin from Ulbricht’s online wallet and attempt to covertly sell him an escape plan for even more Bitcoin, should have been enough reasonable doubt to at least have the case heard at the highest level. He also wanted to be heard on a violation of his 4 and 6 amendment rights being violated in light of the Carpenter v. United States case finding for the defendant that a “legitimate expectation of privacy” is to be expected in digital communications according to Reason. That was important to Ulbricht as in his case, digital communications were seized without a warrant, and the court decision said there was no expectation of privacy.

With nowhere else to go, serving a double life sentence with no possibility of parole, Ulbricht has begun using Twitter, as allowed via a proxy, to help try to put his case back out there for the public in the hopes that someone will find a way to help him, whether it be via a new legal channel to re-open his case, or ideally a Presidential pardon. While it is highly unlikely that either will happen, with no other options, he has nothing to lose in trying as per DeepDotWeb. Although he has only been able to dispatch 16 tweets, he has amassed nearly 18,000 followers and almost 52,000 signatures on a Change.org petition that his mother set up with the hopes that someone will help.

As reported by DeepDotWeb, the U.S. Libertarian Party has stated that they will continue to petition President Donald Trump on Ulbricht’s behalf for a pardon. They have petitioned Trump at least once already when he stated he was considering several people for pardons, but nothing came of it according to Yahoo! Finance.

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