Ross Ulbricht, the Silk Road mastermind who is set to spend the rest of his life in jail on charges relating to running the site, has penned a heartfelt letter calling for justice and the importance of fairness in a civilized society. The letter, which constitutes his first medium post and was uploaded Thursday, discusses his opinion that prison doesn’t help reform individuals, it simply punishes beyond reason and opens the door to vengeance under the guise of fairness.
Prison is torture. I’ll show you.
Here is my first Medium post titled “Who Deserves This?”https://t.co/EQ2Q3bHwVw— Ross Ulbricht (@RealRossU) June 27, 2019
Ulbricht Describes Prison as “Torture”
In the letter, Ulbricht compares prison to “torture”, which is not surprising in itself, but he goes on to say that he and many of his fellow prisoners would prefer a shorter physical punishment to the mental torture of prison life. He also states that his demonization in the media following his arrest was critical so that the public, and the jury, would find it easier to condemn him:
Suddenly, countless people were meeting a strawman, not me at all, but a dangerous criminal. It’s easier to condemn a villain, so it had to appear that I deserve this. This is punishment after all, and would be unfair otherwise.
Out of Appeals
Ulbricht was jailed in May 2015 on seven charges including drug trafficking, computer hacking, money laundering, criminal enterprise, and aiding and abetting the distribution of drugs over the internet. He received five sentences totaling life plus 40 years, and in 2018 saw his final appeal rejected by the U.S Supreme Court, meaning that unless some compelling evidence is uncovered that could vacate his conviction, or appeals to high ranking politicians for clemency are heeded, he is likely to see his sentence out.
