The petition pleading US President Donald Trump to commute Ross Ulbricht’s sentence now has gathered more than 250,000 signatures. The petition on Change.org was started in July 2018, and it gathered 6,200 signatures during the first three days.
No charges of violent crimes against Ross Ulbricht
Ross was not convicted of any violent crimes, and still, he is facing a double life sentence without the possibility of parole. But people have continued to fight against the court’s order as more than 250,000 people have signed the petition to get Ross out of jail. Ross was convicted of money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic fraudulent identity documents. He was sentenced in May 2015. Ulbricht’s appeal to the US court appeals for the second circuit in 2017, and the US Supreme court the next year were unsuccessful.
Creator of the Silk Road
Ross Ulbricht created a website on Dark Net, Silk Road, that allowed users to buy and sell anything anonymously. The mode of payment on the website was various cryptocurrencies. The FBI seized the website and arrested Ross in October 2013. But different versions of the Silk Road website continued to operate under the same name as used by Ross, Dread Pirate Roberts. Earlier, bitcoin advocate and successful investor Tim Draper called for Ross’s release from the prison and said that we need more entrepreneurs like him.
