Ross Ulbricht Loses His Appeal – Here’s What Happens Next

The precedents that are being sent with this but people really need to understand this isn't just about Ross and me and the case there are very serious presidents being set with this case that will trickle down into the courts in the future and we're at a tipping point in history right now and the courts are grappling with how to deal with all of these things you're listening to the Corbett report welcome friends james corbett here corbettreport.com today is the 10th of June 2017 and we are talking to Lin Ulbricht and I'm sure that name is familiar to a lot of the audience already but for those who are not familiar Lin is the mother of Ross Ulbricht and the website that you're going to want to go to to get informed about Ross Ulbricht in the case against him is free ross org of course that will be linked in the show notes where you can read about the story of Ross Ulbricht who was arrested in October of 2013 charged and eventually convicted of being the founder and administrator of the Silk Road website and that is a large case in and of itself and lots to go through again I'm sure a lot of you have heard this story in other venues before but this is your first time on the program so Lin Olbrich thank you very much for joining us here today well thank you James for having me and really appreciate it well it is very important to talk about this story as anyone who's familiar with the story knows this is about so much more than any one individual this is about concepts that range all the way from the judicial system the judicial process and the right to a fair trial to the ideas of a gore-ism and and other subjects that I've talked about in my work in the past as being essential to the way forward out of the the problems that we find ourselves in today so it's a very very important case to talk about but before we get into the case and the details of all that perhaps we can set the table for today's conversation by talking about Ross Ulbricht as a human being can you tell us about him as as you know him as a mother as a child as a person what was he like in in the world Ross is an exceptional person and people who know him and need him say that pretty much consistently he's a very the pleasure to raise he was very easygoing mellow person and he still is but very intelligent lots of fun uh just a very pleasant person and he grew into and idealist and someone was very compassionate there's a hundred letters that were written to judge Forrest about Ross from people who knew him personally including for inmates and they paint a picture of a person who is rare exceptional and in his compassion and his idealism and wanting to make a difference in the world as well as just an easygoing down-to-earth human being and even journalists who said they were spent hundreds of hours talking to people about him did not find one person to say they just like drops in anyway and in fact quite the contrary that he was interested in helping the underdog that he was always he's very sensitive to others that's really what he's like he's a really amazing guy and he's handled the situation so well and made a difference in the prison tutoring teaching classes you know just been a blessing in there so I think very highly of Ross I'm not saying there Ross and the false or to make mistakes or but he's a person of integrity and idealism and his background and his original interests were in science he was a physics major and man he dies master's in material science he was never a computer programmer as my dad says I never knew a lot of programming languages or was very versed in that you scientists yeah and he he was very interested in how the world worked and worked in solar energy and all kinds of interesting things and wrote academic papers which I couldn't understand at all yeah I mean um then he became very interested in the Liberty movement with Ron Paul's campaign and in Austrian economics and algorism and those philosophies and according to the story that we've been told through the case that was brought against him it was in 2010 that he began working on what became the Silk Road and ultimately led to his arrest in 2013 can you tell us about the Russell Birk story from 2010 to 2013 from your perspective what was he doing at that time what was he talking to you about at that time um you know he was doing he was doing financial things with people he he was working on a Bitcoin exchange he told me about Bitcoin and I said will surely buy some and he goes no mom it's too volatile I think was worth about a dollar then not very good advice there but so he was an entrepreneur he had a book a used book selling business that actually he donated 10% I think it was or 8% I think was 10 to charity and actually he's been involved in lots of volunteer work but yeah so he worked on the computer and different adventures he went out to San Francisco because a friend said hey I'm going to do a startup do you want to be involved and he thought it'd be interesting so you live very simply and so that's what he was doing for my point of view he did spend time with us we have a business in Costa Rica that's off-grid out of the jungle and he spent six weeks with us during that time I don't see how anyone can run a worldwide you know zillion dollar market from there there wasn't an email but in any case yeah he and he loved nature he loves being out in nature and which is very hard because for the last three and a half years he's been in New York City in a very confined place that's um he's now been moved but he still isn't even a transition well so towards for my understanding and I haven't gone through all the documentation and I don't know the case back to front like you do but for my interest it was during the time at which sentencing was coming up that Ross wrote a letter to the judge asking for leniency asking to be spared his later years in life knowing that there was at least 20 year sentence coming um and in that letter he admitted to founding the Torah booklet imagine creating and he he has a concept and in fact previous to that he had created a video game and actually there's a LinkedIn passage about I've created a economic simulation you told me the economic simulation was that video game it was kind of modeled after World of Warcraft or Second Life type of thing but was based on Austrian economics and his idea was to have this video game played all over the world where people could have an experience of voluntary free market interaction through a video game and he talked to people about having it published he did he entered a entrepreneurial contest with it and it ultimately didn't sell but yeah so that's he was very involved with that but you know bad I forget yeah anyway welcome from the outside perspective then this looks like an open-and-shut case so here's this guy he's admitted to founding this website that was this vast drug or an organization he was caught in the library with his laptop open and with logged in as an administrator DPR Dread Pirate Roberts it seems like an open-and-shut case what then is the defense why why would you put up a defense against they'd be started well just to be clear he was in library downloading the Colbert Report that was in the trial and yes he did log on when the DHS agent came on and had him do that I don't I know now that he certainly wasn't the only person with that log in because after trial it's been discovered that another Dread Pirate Roberts used that account to log in after Ross was arrested so yes he did that when he coach to do orto asked to do that but he says that he was set up and he kept back into it and he got out of it was working at a Bitcoin exchange and then at the end back into it but that he wasn't running it the whole time the defense was not permitted to explore this it was they had a different perpetrator in their sights mark Repp Ellis and this was all coming out from the government's own evidence at trial with Jared Reagan who is a DHH DHS agent and what happened was as he was about to close in on her fellows and he had he had probable cause for warrants and everything DHS Maryland which is the site of two admittedly corrupt agents down prison alerted her palace by taking over $2,000,000 rooms account the next thing we hear from at trial was that repeal of his lawyers approached DHS Maryland and said we'll offer you a deal we will give you the PRS name if you back off our client the next two weeks later Ross is arrested this is very very interesting I think it raises some doubt I certainly would have liked to have heard more about this but it was shut down and the next I wanted to try it when we got back to trial the judge said all those that questioning was off limits and we could no longer pursue that as I said and since then we've also the defense's discovered evidence tampering which was there was a press conference about it last November which indicates a third corrupt agent deleted evidence and there's just so many unanswered things that remain sealed and undisclosed and even as though let's just say even if every it is an open-and-shut case which I don't believe it is I think it's a lot more to it double life plus 40 years for all nonviolent charges is horrible it's it's a brutal and so I don't it's defensible 20 years is a generation it is a long long sentence and to give someone double life without parole there is no hope it's a death sentence really it is a really really wrong and rather than the only one there are thousands of people now serving life who are nonviolent in our system and it's growing it's a record number of people it's a serious problem so can you talk about what the judge said in her sentencing was were the factors that influence that really remarkably long sentence right well she leaned on uncharged allegations of murder for hire the government never brought those charges to try they talked about them they were based on digital evidence which Adi expert will tell you is very vulnerable to tampering planting deleting she relied on that to justify her sentence even though Roz was not charged or convicted for it she also referenced his film philosophy and the philosophy of the site that called the government troubling and dangerous now where she called that troubling James called the garment the oppressor and she considered that troubling and dangerous to call the government the oppressor and said well I'm not sure if that's the philosophy you've given up and so implying that well he has to stay in a cage for the rest of his life because maybe he would still think of the government as an oppressor when he got out in 20 years that is a First Amendment problem in my opinion to use political views and philosophical views to bolster draconian sentence so you know there that those were two things that really stood out in the sentencing that I thought were really wrong there are also parents of people who had died of drug abuse allegedly from drugs from Silk Road we hired a pathologist who said there's absolutely no way you can prove that in any case that would mean every web host where someone bought something on my site would be liable for that person's debt for instance Amazon sold cyanide to a teenage girl and her mother suing Amazon sank Amazon's responsible and you can see how this is a slippery slope for vicarious liability that is way out there but in any case it wasn't proven that these people died from Silk Road as a Roth was responsible for this but it was brought in sentencing frankly seem like a circus to me to have and it was it was awful I felt really bad for these people had lost a child even though they were brought of age where one month anyway it was like they weren't children but they were they had lost them and I understand that but I don't see the place in a sentencing this is not proven at trial this was never proven at all and that was relied on um there were many things in active sentencing that bolster de sentence that I think shouldn't have been in there she could have given him 20 years and that's a long sentence you know but I think it was punitive yeah there's a fencing Reform Act that Congress passed saying a sentence should be sufficient but no longer than necessary she never really said why it was necessary to give him that long sentence and it's not Ross could leave today and you would not break the law Ross is you know not fit into that and certainly in 20 years he's not allowed on the Internet so in 20 years not having been on the internet to think that he's a threat to come build another so grown is absurd and yet that's what they're doing they said they're doing it to set an example and deter others which is completely hasn't happened and in fact the opposite has happened this darknet sales have increased tremendously and the sites are much bigger than Silk Road ever was so it hasn't to turn anybody and hasn't served any purpose except to waste Ross's life let's just backtrack a little bit because I think one of the most startling parts of this story that I think still people don't really know about in depth are the fact that that we know there are convicted DEA agents and agents of various sorts that were absolutely involved in stealing from the Silk Road site completely corrupt agents that have access to tamper with various chat logs and things that their evidence was presented in trial and the evidence that these were in fact convicted agents who who had been rogue was disallowed from trial that's really startling let's talk a little bit about that aspect of the story well not only was there evidence alone they were not allowed the jury wasn't allowed to know they even existed and one of them Shawn bridges was working for the NSA at the time by the way the defense didn't even know he existed until after trial and the defense process and said look this is relevant the jury has a right to know the two corrupt agents were not only stealing from the site but they were experts in crypto technology they had the ability to change passwords pin numbers chats on the forum and the marketplace it could act as many aliases including Dread Pirate Roberts who were all supposedly was the only one they had all kinds of abilities to tamper with his evidence that the jury was shown and yet the jury wasn't allowed to know they even existed until after the trial and the defense said wait we'll just postpone they go we have to do our investigation we don't want to alert these these agents and the defense said okay let's wait we'll have a fair trial later and the judge wouldn't allow that and then it turned out they already knew they were under investigation they've been interviewed by law enforcement so it was such a you know travesty and the other brady rule said you're not allowed to hide evidence that is this culpa Tory that you're allowed to the jury is allowed to know and things that are helpful to the defendant and they didn't know a thing about it it's absolutely remarkable I mean there is an on its face that there's a complete that's me that is a mistrial there's there's no way unless yeah well the appellate court in New York doesn't think didn't agree and I think there is now evidence for a third agent that deleted a bunch of information can you tell us about that yeah after trial the defense mode in six terabytes of discovery evidence on to the defense pretrial but a lot of materials go through and so they didn't you know wasn't capable of doing it all but they continued after trial and came across an obscure folder that had good material between DPR and someone called not wonderful who was saying he was a law enforcement agent wanted to sell DPR information which DPR agreed to pay him for and there's another folder showing payments this file was completely what was in the evidence that was shown to the jury had a whole big part truncated totally deleted that indicated his corruption and there was and if that hidden file had not been discovered no one would be the wiser and it and deleted the thing by digital evidences there's no fingerprint there's no witnesses you do not cannot forensic we prove something's been tampered with the other thing was found during the same discovery was this login by using the Dread Pirate Roberts account seven weeks after Ross was in prison we don't know they only shows the last login so we don't know how many times this person logged in how many of them there were how long would it been going on but it's there now this is not part of the appeal because this was not brought out in the trial because we'd know about it and so it would take another trial to have this come out a change seems like a travesty you've got detention yeah and the defense had a you know a press conference about it and wrote on the government about it and has the information it's not I'm not just saying it it it's there but we have to go through the legal steps alright well unfortunately there is even worse news that has come out recently obviously relating to the appeal of that conviction can you tell us about the news well the appellate court the Second Circuit completely denied the entire appeal just two convictions the part about the corrupt agents the sentence so that devastating frankly I thought that they would at least give him another chance the descends because it so many people were outraged with the sentence and it's not just for Roth there's some funny as I said nonviolent people who physically hurt anyone and I'm not saying you know look you can make an argument for sentencing but life for nonviolent crimes is just and there's your parole no chance at redemption there's no chance to make restitution you're done you are sealed away for life to die amazing people who are violence I didn't think they do it and they even said well we might not have given that sentence but she was under her discretion so we can't change it so then the next step is to appeal the appeal which is a petition for rehearing we hear that the Second Circuit very very rarely he hears anything and kind of winning the lottery but you try and then the next step that's available is to submit a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court on whatever issues you know you want them to hear so the climb gets steeper and steeper it's very difficult but only 10,000 petitions are entered and you know submitted to the Supreme Court and they take about 85 of them again like winning a lottery of sorts yeah well and I understand that Ross has been moved from the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York where he was being held where has he been moved in well and he was held there longer than normal because he wanted to be near his lawyers and she doesn't have privileges and wanted to be able to work on the appeal but so it's really a transitional facility and which is why hardly ever got outside at all because it's very contained in Manhattan but now he's been moved he's into processing centers what they do in they send them to Oklahoma and he's like wow it's so spacious now he's like wow it's not a closet you know but he has been as far as we know he'll be designated to Florence USP in Colorado which not to the Supermax which is like the most serious Supermax in the system but to a high-security he doesn't I was just reading over before the show all the criteria from being in a lower security prison which he meets all of them you know nonviolent all the different things none of his defenses but because this judge gave him such a long sentence he all those gets swept aside and he has to be in a high security even though he poses no threat to anyone because it's the sentence well and their course they're much more dangerous places I'm very concerned about his safety I'm happening back home security prisoners Ross is not violent he's totally peaceful God you know and I'm concerned well not to add to the concern but even the federal transfer center in Oklahoma City is well we'll be familiar to my listeners as the place work in Kenneth Michael turn admit his untimely end at the hands of federal authority yes so whoa well okay I didn't know about that yes it is not a happy picture right now yes yeah well it is it is a just a terrible case in every way imaginable and of course if the intent is to send the message from the government to people out there generally that just using Ross as a figurehead that if you talk about algorithms if you talk about trying to use Bitcoin if you talk about in any way trying to exist outside of the system we have constructed for you look what we have in store it's a very very scary message for them to be sending and I'm sure that there are people listening to that message what has been a real quick for that because there's a criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield who wrote in this body goes that's why you got the sentence because he had the hubris to think that he could create a virtual Agora outside government control that's why does the drug drug sentences with Silk Road offenders long as one is ten years it's not about drugs it's about an idea it's about privacy it's about Bitcoin Chuck Schumer's behind it was on the Senate Finance Committee and I believe of Bitcoin was very alarming to them it's about those things it's the sensationalism around it and you were very perceptive because when I think you right at the beginning said wait a minute there's a bigger picture here and so right past all of sensationalism very few people did so to your credit because that's exactly what it is and so anyway it's about you better not create an Agora you better not because and it seemed relative like the hand on the spike of the medieval castle that's what's going to happen to you that doesn't work apparently but that that's what they're doing well Ron I thought we were supposed to be judged as individuals not to be made some kind of sacrificial lamb yes exactly well Russ is a political prisoner I don't think there's any to weighing around them absolutely has he has he made any mention of that as he talked about that aspect of this well I'll meet ya I mean he I believe agrees we don't you know we haven't talked a lot about that I believe he thinks that you know that he he feels like he's been treated very unfairly and then he wants his dying to tell his story himself because he feels like the media started terribly at the trial distorted it and he wants to be able to say who he is he wanted to testify to trial he wanted to be open and communicate and was advised not to and still has been because you know Ross is when you read about in the media and then you know him there's such a disconnect but it's also he wants to talk to you know basically saying what he had in mind was privacy and voluntary interaction that's what he care about rustling care about drugs didn't really care about making a ton of money or any of that kingpin and all that Sun who he is so we've talked about all that well speaking of Media smears in Kington I have read American kingpin by Nick Bilton oh you don't have to I don't recommend people go out and buy the book but at any rate I have read it would you like to respond to any of built-ins reporting reporting in that work of non fiction quote unquote yeah well you know Nick Belton was very much wanted me to be involved in that book and I was warned by someone who knew that it was going to be the government narrative and he the same person's only the Hilton or the people involved told him that the government supplied them with material a year before trial they said them their version so I believe the government couldn't convict Ross of murder for hire themselves they got built-in to do it for them and he bases the whole thing on this is true it's not even proven a little bit extra side read have shown distortion about things I personally know about where you know it's things like oh well he lived in a basement and it was a what he owned the house for the basement was a finished basement he owned the Hat brought on the house and he rented rooms stairs in college we don't like you with some strange troglodyte living in a basement you know that kind of thing yeah okay you live it and there's a lot of this sort of distortion and sensationalizing it creates I guess a good movie treatment I haven't read the book um yes clearly don't you um your pee I don't want to read it it really is upsetting in a lot of ways specifically because of course it's written like a novel or something where he puts you in the minds of the characters as if he knows what they're speaking at a moment to moment basis it's ridiculous but very effective I'm sure I'm sure a lot of people will read that and come away quite convinced that they know what they know about the case at any rate there's a lot of um being said public that's what happens if you really want to dig into it isn't work it's yeah it's much more sensationalism sensationalizing and kind of exciting – yeah of course that's interesting the hearing responds well Indian arts yeah well again I don't want people putting any money in the pockets of guilt okay well don't buy the books at any rate well they're so so so much that we should and could talk about here I would like to finish off by talking about your own experience of this politically in terms of your own awareness of or activism in the realm of Ag or ism or the Agora what was your own understanding of this before any of this happened and what is it now a I mean towards entrepreneurial and entrepreneurs we lean towards we with us alone manraja supporting Ron Paul I certainly didn't disagree with anything there so it wasn't a huge leap for me in that sense but my eyes have really been opened by seeing up close and personal home how the government operates and I have been chopped and I have been alarmed and the precedents that are being sent with this but people really need to understand this isn't just about Ross and me and the case there are very serious presidents being shipped with this case that will trickle down into the courts in the future and we're at a tipping point in history right now and the courts are grappling with how to deal with all of these things and you know the idea of vicarious liability where you can blame someone for someone else's action the use of digital evidence to put someone away for life when a mortgage company won't even take a screenshot of a bank statement that core has a lower standard of evidence that a mortgage company or you know the use of corruption of course they're there are the preclusion of the corruption but there's so many precedents that will impact all of us the privacy aspect the I mean there's so many I realize more and more as I propelled will do this now this is so much bigger and how we live in serious times and I I'm very concerned about it and so I do feel that it's a bigger mission I do want to have my son free I desperately do but it's also a bigger cause for me now and the people that I've met through this were just amazing people you know I think we're at a very important struggle right now and I think we're in danger of losing our freedom and we need to people my River want people to wake up about it well if you want to know what the government is afraid of just look at the way they treat people like Ross so clearly I'm or ISM is something that they do fear and that a message that I'm sure my audience will be receptive to is it something that I talked about quite a bit so people who want to help you in your mission in the appeal of the appeal and in the outreach generally that you do at free Russ org how can people support that mission well there's all kinds of ways on free rest at heart of course one of the ways the government crushes individuals is to bankrupt them basically it's very very expensive so we always need financial help but also in connections if you have ideas you can reach me through that website on the contact pages email me I see all the emails and you know any kind of connections to get the word out to spread the word to help us on social media to spread the word to counteract this narrative that's being that Roz is being smeared with as a person as well as to point out the importance of the issues that will affect us all so there's lots of waste lots of different levels and yeah we really appreciate the support we've gotten tremendous support and do need it we're one family you know and now so thank you yeah thanks for having me well as you say this is about so much more than one individual or one family that you are shouldering so much of the the brunt of this so I really do hope that people will go and help help out what they can in whatever way they can even just spreading information about free Resort and about the work that you're doing there because again this does affect everyone one way or another in the long run all right Lynn Obrecht thank you very much for your time I certainly do hope that we can have you on again in the future to talk about further developments Abby great thanks so much Chancellor invision The Colbert Report is brought to you by you your support makes the Corbett report possible sign up for the subscriber newsletter or purchase a DVD at corbettreport.com slash support