President Donald Trump has granted an unconditional pardon to the creator of the notorious Silk Road website who partially developed it while living in Sydney more than ten years ago.
Ross Ulbricht, 40, was arrested in 2013 after the dark website he founded facilitated the sale of illicit drugs using cryptocurrency.
According to documents filed in the Southern District Court of New York, Ulbricht established the site – described by FBI prosecutors as ‘the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet today’ – in January 2011 and was running it up to late September 2013, when he was nabbed by police.
He was in Sydney during the early part of that timeline, with a friend saying he spent about six months in the city in 2011, during which he lived in a share house at Bondi Beach.
A Sydney mate previously said that he was ‘absolutely gobsmacked’ to learn of Ulbricht’s double life.
‘He’s the nicest guy,’ the friend said. ‘He said he was a programmer consulting in projects and you could do it from anywhere on the road on laptops. I’m totally spun out.’
In early 2015 Ulbricht was sentenced to two life terms in prison plus 40 years for drug trafficking, conspiracy to commit money laundering and computer hacking, operating under the pseudonym ‘Dread Pirate Roberts.’
‘Make no mistake: Ulbricht was a drug dealer and criminal profiteer who exploited people’s addictions and contributed to the deaths of at least six young people,’ Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said upon Ulbricht’s sentencing.
On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to commute Ulbricht’s sentence ‘on day one’ if he were re-elected, and garnered enormous support from the convicted criminal’s loved ones and fans.
The President revealed on Tuesday evening that Ulbricht had been granted a ‘full and unconditional pardon.’
‘I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbright (sic) to let her know that in honor of her and the libertarian movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross,’ Trump revealed on TruthSocial.
‘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.
‘He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!’
Prosecutors had described Silk Road as an unprecedented one-stop online shopping mall where the supply of drugs was virtually limitless.
At his 2015 sentencing, the judge cited six deaths from drugs bought on Ulbricht’s site and five people he tried to have killed. Ulbricht said at the time that he was a changed man.
Earlier on Tuesday, Ulbricht’s clemency lawyer said he maintained hope Trump would deliver on his promise to commute the sentence.
‘We do expect President Trump to grant clemency. The president, when a candidate, said that he would release Ross on his first day in office,’ he said.
‘We have no doubt the president will follow through on his commitment to release Ross. Ross, his family, and all his supporters are forever grateful to President Trump for his willingness to show mercy to Ross.’
Senator Rand Paul had earlier sent a letter to Trump noting that Ulbricht’s sentence was ‘vastly disproportionate to his crimes’, adding ‘the worst drug sellers on the site received significantly more lenient sentences’.
Trump vowed at a rally with libertarians in May that he would commute Ulbricht’s sentence, sparking cheers from an otherwise distrusting crowd.
Ulbricht shared an update on X the following day revealing he was aware of, and emboldened by, the commitment.
‘Last night, Donald Trump pledged to commute my sentence on day 1, if reelected,’ he wrote.
‘Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. After 11 years in prison, it is hard to express how I feel at this moment. It is thanks to your undying support that I may get a second chance.’
Ulbricht had previously maintained that he did not intend for his website to morph into what it ultimately became.
He never sold illicit substances himself, despite being convicted of drug trafficking.
‘I was trying to help us move toward a freer and more equitable world,’ Ulbricht said from prison in 2021.
‘We all know the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and now here I am. I’m in hell.’
