“It was very devastating to have the Supreme Court deny his petition because we really were hopeful,” said Lyn. “He stays optimistic, he stays positive, and it’s intentional – he knows that if he succumbs to bitterness or despair that it’s just going to weaken him.” “He’s an amazingly strong person and he keeps a good attitude, almost always,” Lyn told The Daily Swig in a telephone interview from her home in Colorado, close to United States Penitentiary Florence High. Now she is asking the President of the United States for a commutation of his sentence, following two failed appeals to the Supreme Court. Since his sentencing, his mother Lyn Ulbricht has campaigned for his release from prison by speaking at conferences and petitioning the courts. Ulbricht was sentenced in 2015 for 40 years plus two life sentences with no chance of parole – a ruling dubbed “draconian” by both his supporters and his family. He was later convicted of money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic fraudulent identity documents, and conspiracy to traffic narcotics on the internet. Ulbricht was apprehended by authorities at a San Francisco public library in October 2013, whilst logged into the administrative section of the Silk Road site. The site was hosted on the dark web and boasted privacy and anonymity for both its staff and users – until a two-year FBI investigation cracked open the once-secretive operation. Ulbricht, now 34, was the creator of the website dubbed ‘the Amazon for drugs’, which allowed users to buy and sell narcotics and other items (both illegal and legal) online. The mother of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht has told of her son’s fight for freedom, after he was jailed indefinitely for his role in establishing one of the world’s most notorious darknet marketplaces.
Lyn Ulbricht speaks to The Daily Swig about her son’s life in prison and his campaign for clemency
0 kommentar(er)
