0:00

While speaking at the National Libertarian

0:02

Convention recently, President Trump said many

0:05

things that would appeal to crypto-positive

0:07

individuals. But besides his support for

0:09

crypto, Trump said if re-elected, he

0:11

would commute the double lifetime sentence

0:14

of Ross Ulbricht, founder of Silk

0:16

Road. Ross' mother, Lynn, has

0:18

been his greatest advocate and back in

0:20

October 2018, we spoke

0:23

with her about her ongoing battle to

0:25

free Ross. We thought this would be

0:27

a very relevant time to revisit this

0:29

discussion in hopes that Ross will soon be able to

0:31

put all of this behind him. So join

0:34

us today for a walk down memory lane on

0:36

our best of bed crypto series. This is episode

0:38

number 730 of the Bad Crypto Podcast. And

1:12

welcome to the Bad Crypto Podcast show

1:14

for the crypto curious, crypto serious, and

1:17

all of the ancillary, block chaining crypto

1:19

open ledger things. This is Sir

1:21

Lord Trev. What

1:24

do you got there? Oh, you got your digital. I got

1:26

one of those two, the free loss digital. Is that's got

1:28

the hologram thing on the back, right? Holy

1:31

graham. There it is. Yeah, there's all there's

1:33

a limited number of those. I think if

1:35

you go to free Ross dot org, I'm

1:38

not sure if they're still available or not, but they're

1:40

pretty cool. It's a big 71 of 500. This

1:44

is like this was even before the NFTs were

1:46

popping out. So these are real. And I'm not sure

1:48

if this is silver. I don't think it is, but

1:51

it's really cool. It's silver

1:53

ish. It's silver like

1:55

in its form. So this article

1:57

here on Politico, a little bite.

2:00

But it says Trump pledges to commute

2:02

sentence of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbrich

2:04

if elected the moment drew cheers for

2:07

Trump at the Libertarian National Convention after

2:09

a night of booze. It wasn't a

2:11

night of booze. I Watched

2:14

most of it. There were

2:16

just some booze at the beginning and they

2:18

were drinking booze Yeah, they

2:20

booed when he made the very

2:24

Sillion point that they

2:27

don't get more than 3% of the vote Libertarians

2:29

don't get more than 3% of vote

2:31

and the guy they nominated for this

2:34

year He's probably gonna get one

2:37

to two percent. Maybe let's say

2:39

he's very flamboyant and probably gonna get less

2:41

than that We'll see. I don't I don't

2:43

necessarily know but he did say that He

2:47

would come he would commute. He didn't

2:49

say he would pardon He

2:51

said he would commute which I

2:53

think there's a little difference in that pardon means

2:55

that they take the whole they take is Felony

2:58

away, I guess if they pardon you, but if

3:00

they commute you they just say time served and

3:02

you can get out of jail I think I'm

3:04

not sure you know, that's a

3:06

good thing. I'm asking the the internet

3:08

machine right now exactly

3:12

What that is and wouldn't you

3:14

know that the internet machine brings

3:16

up? Answers here

3:18

commutation is a form of clemency that

3:21

reduces the punishment for a crime It

3:23

usually takes the form of a reduced

3:25

prison term, but it can also reduce

3:27

court-ordered fines. So yes in this case

3:31

That's probably what happened. But

3:33

a pardon is a forgiveness

3:35

of the Forgiveness

3:39

versus reduction was the same commutation

3:42

only reduces the sentence pardons forgive the

3:44

defendant for the crime So

3:46

it is a difference Commutation

3:49

says you still did the crime and

3:52

we think you've done your time. That's fair.

3:54

Get out of jail That's fair. I mean

3:56

two and a half two essentially two and

3:58

a half life sentences Right. I mean, the

4:00

average life span is what, 80 years ballpark. So

4:03

they gave him two life sentences plus 40 years,

4:05

which is stupid. And so

4:08

hopefully, you know, he can get out after being

4:10

in for what, about 10 years. That

4:13

apparently so. So the interview that we did back

4:15

in 2018 with Lynn, she

4:17

is accompanied by her friend and attorney, Sasha Hader,

4:19

for this. We talk about the history of Silk

4:22

Road, which if you don't know it, this is

4:24

extremely relevant. You need to know this. This is

4:26

an important part of blockchain

4:28

and Bitcoin history and

4:31

talks even then about how six years

4:33

ago, Lynn was working to get him

4:36

freed. And now I would imagine that

4:38

she's more hopeful than ever. So

4:41

let's listen in to this interview with

4:43

Lynn Ulbricht and Sasha Hader. And

4:48

now we've got a great feature interview

4:50

with you today. We've been wanting to

4:52

get Lynn Ulbricht on the show for

4:54

some time. And she's actually going to

4:56

be speaking at the event that we're

4:58

heading off to here shortly at

5:01

World Crypticon in Las Vegas. So

5:03

we'll get to see her in

5:05

person. But she, along with her

5:08

attorney friend, Sasha Hader, talked to

5:10

us about Ross and his sentencing

5:12

and how she's working to get

5:14

him freed, which is a

5:16

tough task. But you guys are going to

5:18

like this. Listen in. One

5:24

of the legendary incidents in

5:27

the online space revolved around a

5:29

website called the Silk Road, whether

5:31

or not you've heard of this.

5:33

There's a lot of information out

5:35

there about it. It was an

5:37

online marketplace. And the

5:39

the key to it was that users

5:42

were completely private. You

5:44

were able to use

5:46

Bitcoin on the Tor

5:49

browser and anonymously exchange

5:51

all kinds of goods, many

5:53

of them legal and some of them

5:55

illegal, including drugs. And

5:58

what was prohibited was. anything

6:01

involuntary that created victims are used

6:03

for. So, you know, child pornography,

6:05

obviously stolen goods, violent services,

6:07

all of that was not

6:10

allowed on the platform. Well, a

6:12

gentleman by the name of Ross

6:14

Ulbricht, he's a 31

6:16

year old and he had absolutely

6:18

no criminal history, but he was

6:21

sentenced to a double life sentence

6:23

without parole plus 40 years.

6:27

These are all non-violent charges

6:29

because he created the Silk

6:31

Robe website and Ross is

6:33

currently in prison serving time.

6:35

We have with us today,

6:37

Ross's mother, Lynn Ulbricht. She

6:39

is, you know, any

6:42

mom would do whatever she could to

6:47

protect her son and she has dedicated

6:49

her life to

6:52

speaking out, raising

6:54

awareness and gaining signatures on

6:56

a petition to

6:58

gain clemency for Ross

7:00

through the website freeross.org.

7:04

Welcome to Bad Crypto, Lynn. We're really glad you're

7:06

here. Oh, so happy to be

7:08

here. Thanks for that great introduction and you

7:10

know, very accurate and well said. Yeah,

7:13

we're looking forward to hearing the story.

7:15

Also joining us is Sasha Hatter. Sasha

7:17

is a partner at the DLT Law

7:19

Group and she used

7:21

to focus on banking law,

7:24

fintech, but she's really

7:27

strong in the crypto arena right

7:29

now and regulations surrounding it and

7:32

she is working with Lynn on

7:34

this attempt to free Ross and

7:37

Sasha, we're glad that you're here with us as well. Thank

7:39

you, glad to be on the show. And

7:42

you're on a cruise ship right now,

7:44

right? You're somewhere cruising, what, the Caribbean?

7:47

Actually, we're near Catalina Island.

7:49

I'm on the Contra cruise.

7:51

It's a libertarian event that

7:53

actually Lynn has attended some

7:55

other years, but yeah,

7:57

it's a good group of people. Excellent.

8:00

Well, you know, you can like while we're doing

8:02

the interview, feel free to hit

8:04

the buffet. Because these

8:06

are awesome. So

8:09

why don't we start, Lynn, by kind of

8:11

setting the stage a little deeper with

8:15

what happened regarding Ross

8:17

and Silk Road? And I know you've told

8:19

the story a zillion times, but we really

8:21

need to be informed here and I know

8:23

our listeners want to hear from you. Absolutely.

8:26

You know, Ross was

8:28

a very idealistic 26

8:30

year old when he came up with this idea.

8:33

He actually had the idea before and created a

8:35

video game based on free markets,

8:38

Austrian economics. And he also was

8:40

very excited about the potential for

8:43

monetary freedom through Bitcoin. In

8:45

fact, he told me about Bitcoin and I was like, oh,

8:47

should I get some? And he goes, no, Mom, it's too

8:50

volatile. I think it was worth like, you know,

8:52

a quarter. I don't know, 25 cents. I

8:54

don't know something really, really low. But

8:57

in any case, I did not get any, unfortunately.

8:59

But in any case, he was very excited about

9:01

it. He was very much, you

9:04

know, on fire for freedom and

9:06

privacy and thinking that

9:08

people needed to be protected from

9:10

the surveillance state, which is, of course,

9:12

has expanded tremendously even in the five

9:14

years Ross has been in prison. So

9:17

he came up with this video game, didn't get

9:19

it published, turned to the Internet. And

9:22

so the motivation behind it, despite

9:24

what you'll read in the mainstream media, is

9:26

not to be a drug kingpin and make

9:28

a ton of money. That's just not who

9:30

Ross is. He's very idealistic. And it was

9:32

about creating a private marketplace. And

9:34

as you pointed out, it

9:36

wasn't total. It was pretty much unregulated.

9:39

You know, as long as it didn't

9:41

create victims, it was all voluntary. But,

9:43

you know, Curtis Green, who you'll meet

9:45

at World Crypto, we're all going

9:47

to be, was a high level

9:49

admin who was actually supposedly the victim. Ross's

9:52

victim, he says, I don't think it was Ross, no way. But

9:55

for murder for hire, which those

9:57

charges were dropped, it never went anywhere. except

10:00

to Smir Ross. In any case, Curtis

10:02

said he'd spend all day long going

10:04

through the site to get rid of

10:06

anybody who was on there that was

10:09

creating a victim, that was going against

10:11

what was prohibited. So there

10:13

were standards, but otherwise it was

10:15

up to the individuals and

10:18

drugs were considered part of that. 70%

10:21

of the drugs sold on Silk Road was

10:23

user amounts of cannabis, which

10:26

you'd never know from the media or

10:28

the trial. And of course, Ross is

10:30

being held in a prison, a federal

10:32

prison in Colorado where cannabis

10:34

is legal at the state level. The

10:38

whole thing is pretty schizophrenic and ironic. But in

10:40

any case, so he did that, he

10:44

got out. I mean, we have a whole thing

10:46

called railroaded that is based on

10:48

the public record. It's a narrative of the public

10:50

record. You can go to freeross.org and read it

10:52

or listen to it. We're putting

10:54

it out in segments and it's

10:57

also kind of like a podcast. And

10:59

I learned a lot just putting it together

11:01

with a team. So there's

11:03

a whole story about Ross and his

11:05

actual role. But in any case,

11:07

he took the fall for the entire site,

11:10

even though it's well-known anecdotally as well

11:12

as there's evidence of many,

11:15

certainly more than one, Dread Pirate

11:17

Roberts, the main administrator, and

11:20

in fact, Dread Pirate Roberts logged

11:22

into the Silk Road Forum after Ross

11:24

was arrested in solitary confinement. So there

11:27

were definitely other people involved in this

11:29

site. And so Ross was given,

11:31

as you said, a double life plus

11:33

40 years, a

11:36

sentence. And the thing is now since

11:39

the 80s in federal prisons, life

11:42

means life. It used to be after 30

11:44

years, which is damn long, after

11:46

30 years, you got out with good behavior.

11:48

Now you don't get out, you die in prison.

11:51

So I have been, he

11:53

does not belong in there. He is not a threat to

11:56

anyone. No nonviolent person should get

11:58

a life sentence. Give me a break. break.

12:01

And even the guards in there

12:03

and the staff go, what's he doing in here? He

12:05

doesn't, he's a good guy. He doesn't belong in here.

12:07

He's crazy, you know? And he's

12:09

in a maximum security prison because

12:11

of the sentence where

12:13

the government puts its most

12:15

violent gangs and dangerous criminals.

12:18

So he's had to live in this environment.

12:21

Right recently had to put himself

12:23

in protective custody because he

12:26

refused to participate in an assault on

12:28

another inmate and by refusing, he made

12:30

himself a target. And so he's

12:32

been sitting in protective custody, which

12:35

is basically sitting in

12:37

a metal box, a small

12:39

cell size metal box for

12:41

the last six weeks waiting

12:45

with the prisons to decide what to do with

12:47

him. Yeah. It's such an unfortunate

12:50

scenario because you know, my understanding is

12:52

originally he wanted to build this decentralized,

12:54

you know, e-commerce platform or any sort

12:56

of like an eBay type of a

12:58

thing where people could sell, buy and

13:00

sell stuff. And then, so I wonder,

13:02

I wonder this. So he's the guy,

13:04

you know, one of the founders of

13:06

the, of the, you know, the

13:08

project. And let's say, for example, we've

13:10

been on Instagram and I've had people, you know,

13:12

message me through a private message and say, Hey,

13:15

would you like to buy some weed? We'll send

13:17

you some weed. You're like, if, like,

13:19

is that, would that be the, the,

13:21

you know, Mark Zuckerberg's fault now? If,

13:23

if somebody was to, you know, do

13:25

that, or there was some, some other

13:27

things being sold through people messaging them

13:29

through their platform, does that go all

13:31

the way up to the CEO of,

13:33

of that particular company? Because the original

13:35

intent wasn't to create a notorious drug

13:38

marketplace. It was to create a decentralized

13:40

sort of a platform. But the

13:42

government doesn't, doesn't understand that in 2013. They don't

13:45

understand cryptocurrencies. There was a lot of

13:47

fear around that. And so today, and

13:49

I guess maybe that may be a question

13:52

for Sasha, because you work on the law side

13:54

of things, you know, if you have a platform

13:56

today and some bad stuff happens, that does that

13:58

flow all the way up to the. the

14:00

top leadership of the company? It depends,

14:02

I guess is probably the safest answer,

14:04

but in Ross's

14:06

case, they charged him with the

14:08

conspiracy of the other crimes that

14:10

happened on the website. So when

14:12

you have a conspiracy crime, when

14:14

one person takes any step

14:17

that would further the crime, they

14:19

can get charged with the full

14:21

extent of the crime. And that

14:23

line of criminal charges came up

14:26

to take care of like in RICO

14:29

cases or cases with big gangs.

14:31

And they can get the little guy in

14:33

the gang who didn't have as much involvement.

14:35

But if he made one phone call that

14:38

furthered the intent of the

14:40

kingpin of the gang, then he would get

14:42

charged with just as big of a charge

14:44

as the highest crime that

14:46

the gang committed. And usually that would work

14:48

to get the little guy to roll over

14:50

so that they can go in and get

14:52

a bigger criminal. So that's

14:55

the logic that they used when

14:57

charging Ross was saying, well, he

14:59

knew that the crimes were taking

15:01

place and he enabled them. So

15:05

he was part of the conspiracy, which is,

15:07

I think, just the

15:09

whole fact that those conspiracy

15:11

crimes exist is really a dangerous

15:15

thing because it's not

15:17

looking at usually you need the men's right.

15:19

You know, you have to have the intent

15:21

to do the crime and then you have

15:23

to actually do the act of the crime.

15:25

And these conspiracy charges have taken that away.

15:27

If I could just say, yes,

15:30

go ahead. Sets a precedent for

15:33

exactly what you're talking about sets a precedent

15:35

for the owner or host of a website

15:37

or creator to be held criminally liable for

15:39

whatever happens on their site. So people who

15:42

have a website, interesting, the government needs to

15:44

take note. And, you know,

15:46

hey, look, how many drugs and other things can you

15:48

buy in Craigslist or Facebook? And

15:50

you're going to tell me that the Craig

15:52

Newmark doesn't know about it. I

15:55

mean, I'm not, I'm not applying. He should go

15:57

to jail. I'm just saying, this is,

15:59

this is a. He's in

16:01

danger, you know, if the government wants to

16:03

do it. So they're even, they

16:05

even criminally charged Federal Express for

16:08

money laundering and drug trafficking because

16:10

their customers used FedEx to send

16:13

illegal pharmaceuticals. And they

16:15

criminally indicted them and then they backed off

16:17

because FedEx has very deep pockets and was

16:19

fighting it. So this expands, as

16:21

Kasasha is saying, the criminal umbrella for all

16:23

of us. You can be in a

16:26

conspiracy and I even know what's going on. That's

16:28

a dangerous precedent for sure. Very dangerous.

16:30

The prosecutor in New York was talking

16:33

about, you know, these these murder for

16:35

hires, but they never charged Ross

16:37

with it. The the the

16:39

Maryland prosecution dismissed the charges

16:43

and you know what hit it

16:46

because this this was what they used

16:48

then to deprive him

16:50

of of bail, prejudice, the

16:52

jury and in justify the

16:54

sentencing. Well, I'm trying to

16:56

figure out the motivation for

16:59

them to come at him so

17:01

hard. Well, I think I have

17:03

my theory. I think

17:05

that I don't think it's about drugs at all.

17:07

I you can you can tell from the other

17:10

Silk Road sentences, the biggest drug seller convicted

17:12

of being the biggest drug seller in Silk Road got

17:14

10 years and it goes down from there. I

17:17

think it was the Bitcoin. Chuck

17:19

Schumer is behind the case. He's was

17:21

on the Senate Finance Committee, the banking committee.

17:23

He's hand in glove with Wall Street

17:25

and all the financial powers. And I

17:27

think they were like, whoa, here, what

17:30

is this upstart currency that we

17:32

can't control? What the hell? And

17:35

I believe that they that's

17:37

why they went after him so hard. He even

17:39

said Chuck Schumer publicly said we want to take

17:41

down the owner of this and we don't take

17:43

down Bitcoin. So that's why

17:45

I think they went after him so hard. They

17:47

had they wanted to make an example of him.

17:49

They said so. And also

17:52

the judge was recommended by Schumer for her

17:54

position on the bench. Pre-parara,

17:56

the lead prosecutor, Schumer's longtime,

17:58

you know, co-host. and

18:01

was his special counsel for years and owed

18:03

Schumer his job. And

18:05

Ross was dragged back from California to New

18:07

York to Schumer's state to be tried.

18:09

I mean, on and on. It's very political. And

18:12

I think it had to do with Bickman. I

18:15

think it's safe to refer to

18:17

Schumer as little chucky, like, you

18:20

know, the president. Go ahead, Sasha.

18:22

Well, I was just going to say that

18:24

transfer from moving him to

18:26

New York, I still don't see any

18:29

rhyme or reason from a jurisdictional reason

18:31

why they would have done that. Like

18:33

it was very unusual. And I think

18:36

he should have been tried in California

18:38

where it happened. So

18:41

I don't know how they got a jurisdictional reason.

18:43

I've heard when the Southern District of New York

18:45

wants something, they get it. They're

18:47

like a one criminal justice attorney

18:50

called them the other New York

18:52

Mafia. They are prosecutors

18:55

on steroids. They're horrible. And

18:57

so, yeah. Yeah, that's

18:59

true. They do have a lot of power. So

19:03

one point at the time, just

19:05

me quickly say the NSA came out

19:07

last March that the NSA

19:09

was tracking Bitcoin users a few months

19:11

before Ross's arrest. So they already were

19:14

going after Bitcoin, not terrorists,

19:16

mind you, which is what NSA is supposed to do. But

19:19

the Bitcoin users and of course Silk Road, that's

19:21

the only real place that was being used at

19:23

the time. And so just

19:26

to back up my

19:28

theory, the government was after the

19:30

Bitcoin. Yeah, it's you know, you

19:32

know, when you have a competing currency that kind of

19:34

scares them. And we all know

19:36

how how central banks and the global elite

19:38

bankers kind of control things. And so they're

19:40

trying to get a rap on it before

19:42

it got out of control. But too bad

19:44

Bitcoin has got out of control. That's out

19:46

of the box. And now there's over two

19:48

thousand cryptos. And you know, Joel and I,

19:50

we do this show every week. We actually

19:52

do four shows a week. And

19:54

one of them is when we talk about

19:57

the news. And it's so interesting to see

19:59

so many governments now adopt. blockchain because

20:01

of the transparency and so you can

20:03

see that it's that it's moving forward

20:06

and the industry is maturing and

20:08

you know the I think the stigmatism

20:10

of you know Bitcoin and drugs you know

20:12

and criminals I mean that was the that

20:15

was the narrative that was placed out there

20:17

in the early days to scare people away

20:19

from from cryptocurrency but now I

20:21

think that's you know there's all these different

20:23

ICOs and projects that are happening that it's

20:25

there's a legitimacy that's happened now I want

20:27

to talk to you about the the

20:30

petition that you guys are doing because I

20:32

think that's such a great thing and you

20:34

guys have you know over 60 some odd

20:37

thousand signatures on this thing 5,000 today

20:39

how many 95 for coding that is amazing

20:41

today beautiful mm-hmm hope

20:51

to get a lot more at the world crypto con oh

20:54

very nice so so what is

20:56

the what is the purpose of the

20:58

the petition and how is

21:00

that how do we think that that's

21:03

going to maybe help inevitably free Ross

21:05

well Ross's options are

21:07

pretty slim at this point he and

21:10

the main option is clemency from the

21:12

president a commute commuted

21:14

sentence and the petition is really all

21:16

about the sentence even

21:18

if people don't agree or think Silk

21:20

Road was bad and all of that

21:22

which you know I you know whatever

21:24

the sentence very few

21:26

people think it was justifiable and it

21:29

actually puts us all imperiled have a

21:31

nonviolent first-time offender given this kind of

21:33

draconian sentence it's just it makes it

21:35

possible for the government to overreach like

21:38

that with any of us it's

21:40

it's really outrageous and actually there's a lot

21:42

of excessive sentencing going on in the criminal

21:45

justice system that I can

21:47

talk endlessly about but in any case so

21:50

we're really the petition to me

21:52

is a statement of support and almost

21:54

a PR tool saying look

21:56

half a million people because that's my goal

21:58

half a million people believe, Mr.

22:01

President, that this is worthy of your attention,

22:03

that you should look at this, that this

22:05

is injustice, you know, and so

22:07

it's a tool really. I mean, it doesn't

22:10

guarantee anything, but I think

22:12

it can really represent a real movement,

22:15

and I think it also helps other people see,

22:17

look, you know, there's a lot of people who

22:19

think this is wrong, and that's

22:21

always helpful, and it also encourages

22:23

Ross so much. He loves hearing about, oh

22:25

my God, we reached, you know, I can't

22:27

talk to him now. I can't until I

22:29

see him again, but, because he's where he

22:31

is, but, you know, he was, it's so

22:33

encouraging to him to know so many people

22:35

haven't forgotten him, that they're standing by him,

22:37

and that also that we're hoping that his

22:40

case will shine a light on all the

22:42

injustices that are going on, and sentencing,

22:44

excessive sentencing is one of them.

22:47

Life sentences of Quinn tuppled since

22:50

the 80s in the drug war, Quinn tuppled, and

22:52

there's now 17,000 plus nonviolent

22:55

people serving life. It's

22:58

just, and of course they make tons of money, and

23:01

you know, there's a whole industry, but

23:03

it's absolutely evil. Yeah, the privatized

23:05

prison industry is definitely for profit.

23:08

Public is too. They make, they're all in hand and glove with

23:10

each other, I think. I

23:12

mean, you know, I can't go buy an acre of

23:14

land and build a prison. Oh, I have a private

23:16

prison. No, it's all involved with the crony capitalism, and,

23:19

but the thing with the privates is, is that judges

23:21

and prosecutors can invest in them on Wall Street.

23:24

So how about a conflict of interest there? And they

23:27

have quotas to fill their beds and all

23:29

of that. The whole thing is a giant

23:31

jobs program and profit making industry,

23:35

so many ways. Why do you think

23:37

the Supreme Court wouldn't hear the petition?

23:39

Well, you know, they almost did, and we had

23:42

the best lawyers. They were awesome, and they

23:44

were wonderful, and really, you

23:46

know, wanted to help us,

23:48

and I think

23:51

we made the first hurdle and kind of

23:53

thought that they were going to link it

23:56

with another case called Carpenter, which

23:58

was about cell phone tracking with us. a warrant.

24:00

In other words, now the government actually has to get

24:02

a warrant to track us with our cell phones, which

24:04

before they didn't have to. The

24:06

point we were making in this to be

24:08

linked with Carpenter was the government can

24:11

just go into any of our internet

24:13

browsing history or habits and without a

24:15

warrant secretly, no oversight whatsoever, and just

24:17

get whatever they want and use it

24:19

against you. I mean, and they

24:21

can use it to blackmail officials. They can use it

24:23

for all kinds of reasons and no one knows. They

24:25

just go in there without

24:27

a warrant. And our case was,

24:30

hey, if you're going to make cell phone tracking, need

24:32

a warrant. How about a laptop

24:35

is and a cell phone or both computers?

24:37

It's the same principle. They

24:39

didn't reject it immediately. We were really hopeful

24:41

and then they denied it. And I think

24:44

there's different theories, but it's

24:46

a big subject, I

24:48

guess, Fourth Amendment issue, and they didn't want to

24:50

take the whole thing on. To me, what is

24:52

a Supreme Court for if they're not going to

24:54

take on a warrant? I

24:57

don't really know why, but

24:59

we don't know where it happened because

25:01

I really thought we had a chance.

25:03

Well, our lawyers, who are very experienced,

25:06

thought we had a chance. My theory

25:08

of why they didn't, why his case

25:10

didn't move forward was because they're waiting

25:12

for one that doesn't have some of

25:14

these confounding issues because if they look

25:16

at his case, it's going to bring

25:18

to light the fact that there were

25:20

corrupt FBI agents, that

25:23

there were a lot of bizarre things

25:25

that happened at the lower level trial

25:28

that could look bad on the government.

25:30

And also with the whole Bitcoin

25:33

thing confounded into it, they might be

25:35

waiting for a case that's just got

25:37

a clearer fact pattern that they can

25:39

just examine the Fourth Amendment issue and

25:41

won't have to address all

25:43

of the other things going on in

25:45

this case. And perhaps because Ross is

25:48

a public figure, they don't

25:50

want a giant, really

25:53

front page case happening. It's easier for

25:55

them to look at this issue on a

25:58

smaller case that won't attract them. quite

26:00

as much attention perhaps. Yeah,

26:02

I was told they don't really like dealing

26:04

with high profile, which once

26:07

again, Ross is being penalized by the courts

26:09

for being high profile. That's come up many

26:11

times and that's wrong. We should, we're all

26:13

should have this equal treatment under the law.

26:17

The other, the other fact, the other question in the

26:19

Supreme Court, by the way, which they also denied, was

26:21

a Sixth Amendment violation by the judge because

26:24

the Sixth Amendment guarantees us the right to

26:26

a jury trial and these

26:28

allegations that were never charged at trial

26:30

that you referred to like murder

26:32

for hire. The

26:34

jury never ruled on them because they were never

26:36

charged. I mean, there was never even was part

26:38

of it. And yet she

26:40

used them to justify this barbaric

26:42

sentence. And this

26:44

is a violation of the Sixth Amendment.

26:47

That's why they wrote the Sixth Amendment

26:49

to protect the accused from rogue judges

26:51

and prosecutors and guaranteeing

26:53

you a jury of your peers

26:55

supposedly to decide. And

26:59

she was she just went ahead and did it anyway. And

27:02

this is also a very frightening thing. This

27:04

is a very scary precedent. So

27:06

now what judges just oh, oh, it's not

27:08

proven, but I believe it. So, yeah, you

27:11

know, off with your head. I mean,

27:13

it's just, you know, scary

27:15

stuff. Not fair for

27:17

sure. And, you know, this this case

27:20

sort of reminded me of another high

27:22

profile case of Aaron Schwartz, who

27:24

was one of the founders of Reddit. And

27:27

he stood up for freedom

27:29

and fairness and they basically

27:31

arrested him. And then he

27:33

ended up, you know, taking his own life allegedly.

27:35

Right. He said he would never do that. But

27:37

that's like so I think 2013, when all this

27:39

went down, seemed to be a

27:42

pretty tumultuous time within the

27:44

tech space and crypto

27:47

and, you know, the lawmakers, because they

27:50

were going after people. And Aaron, you

27:52

know, he basically downloaded a bunch of

27:54

scientific journals that were paid for with

27:56

tax money. And then they go behind

27:59

this paper. wall and he basically said, look

28:01

at all this science information that's out there that should

28:03

be public. And so he downloaded a bunch of stuff

28:05

and then he got busted and then, you know, they

28:07

were going to send him to for life or something

28:09

ridiculous. And so 2013 seemed

28:12

to be, you know, a year

28:14

with some, with some crazy, you

28:16

know, over the top sentencing. And

28:19

now that we're five years removed

28:21

from, from Ross's, you know, original

28:24

incarceration, you know, how,

28:26

how likely is it that they're going to review

28:28

this? I know that we have now nearly

28:30

a hundred thousand signatures on the petition. It

28:32

sounds like the only way to do anything

28:34

now is to get clemency from the president.

28:36

How likely is that to occur

28:39

or maybe them to reopen the case and

28:41

just to review it because of the heart,

28:43

the over the top penalty. Oh,

28:45

there, I don't believe they'll do that. The

28:47

justice department is not known for doing that.

28:49

I think that there is another chance,

28:51

um, in the court, it's a long shot,

28:54

but it's called a habeas petition. That's due

28:56

next June that, um, you say why you

28:58

should get a new trial. Um, they

29:01

rarely get, uh, anywhere, but we're

29:03

going to of course, try as

29:05

regards, um, clemency, you know, Hey, if

29:08

anybody has, um, connections

29:10

in Washington or with

29:12

your, with somebody in politics that

29:15

can maybe help us with that to

29:17

get, I would love to be able

29:19

to network with people who do so

29:21

that, you know, more people can be telling

29:23

president Trump, you know, Hey, you need to

29:25

look at this. This wasn't right. This, you

29:27

know, and, and I think the more people

29:30

he respects or will listen to that say

29:32

that the more likely he is to consider

29:34

it. He said he wants to pardon 3000 people. Um,

29:36

I would really

29:38

like Ross to be one of those people

29:41

and I'm for it. I think it's great.

29:43

I think I, I personally, after what I've

29:45

seen in the prisons feel like nonviolent people

29:47

should get an ankle bracelet and make restitution

29:50

if there's a victim, but, um,

29:52

I don't see why nonviolent people need

29:54

to be warehoused sometimes for lifetimes. For

29:56

example, I just got to tell you

29:59

this one example. A friend of

30:01

Rosson where he is is serving

30:03

life for selling marijuana 13 years ago.

30:06

Well, an informant said he did it. Life

30:08

sentence because it was his third strike, which is

30:10

a terribly evil law that you could change. But

30:13

in any case, in Colorado, where it's

30:16

legal, Tony is serving a

30:18

life sentence for selling weed. What

30:21

is going on in our country? And

30:23

the thing is, the population of the

30:25

prisons, because of these excessive sentences, because

30:28

it's continuing, is bigger

30:30

than 11 states. It's

30:32

like its own little, not little,

30:34

its own state as

30:36

far as population is concerned. It's

30:39

out of control. We're the biggest incarcerator on

30:41

the planet, and it's mostly the drug war,

30:45

which doesn't stop anybody from using drugs

30:47

at all. And in fact, they can't even keep drugs out of

30:50

the prison. So

30:52

it's about money and power, and

30:54

it's really un-American. It's

30:56

evil, and it needs to stop. I'm sure

30:58

this has been an incredibly challenging, I mean,

31:01

I can't even find the words to imagine

31:03

what it's been like for Rosson prison. But

31:05

how's he doing? Well, you know, I

31:07

haven't been able, I saw him two weeks

31:09

ago, but I've been traveling and doing conferences.

31:12

And so he has a friend who's been visiting and stuff.

31:14

So I always try to make sure he does have a

31:16

visit. But ever since he put

31:18

himself in protective custody, it's like a bad Skype call.

31:20

You sit in front of a monitor, and you can

31:22

kind of see each other, and you kind of hear

31:25

each other. But

31:27

Ross is an amazing person. He

31:30

really makes it a point to not be

31:33

negative. And he said, hey, I said to

31:35

him, I hate to think of you suffering. He

31:37

goes, I'm not suffering, Mom. I'm okay. And

31:40

he's like, I'm meditating. And

31:42

they won't let him have books. Are you

31:45

serious? No books? Yeah, not

31:47

in there. But they let him have

31:49

a Bible. They let him have a Bible. So

31:51

he's reading the Bible. So

31:53

hey, he's treating

31:55

it as a spiritual retreat, meditating

31:57

and just writing. You

32:01

know, but it's been going on now for six weeks. He

32:03

hasn't been out. Last I talked to him, he'd

32:05

only been outside two times, and that was in

32:07

a cage as well. It's

32:10

pretty rough, and it's quite

32:12

cruel. This

32:14

is for him protecting himself, never mind

32:16

the ones who are in there punished. And

32:19

it's where they put them when they're being punished and

32:21

need to be segregated. But in any case, so what

32:23

I would say is he's doing extremely

32:25

well under the circumstances,

32:28

but look, it's tough. And

32:31

he's handling it so well. I'm really proud

32:33

of him, how he's handling it. And

32:36

he's still himself. He's still funny. He's

32:38

still... I saw a tweet yesterday, or

32:40

maybe the day before, that they give

32:42

him an apple every morning and he

32:45

was able to grow a seed using

32:47

a wet paper towel. And

32:51

it just made me feel so awful thinking that's

32:53

what he's spending his day. He's

32:55

just such a brilliant person, and

32:58

that's the highlight of his day. But

33:00

it's at the same time amazing that

33:02

he is... Who would

33:04

think to do that and take the

33:06

joy out of doing something like

33:08

that? Yeah, yeah, that's him. So

33:11

my question is, he's

33:13

been getting letters and tweeting, and

33:15

people are commenting on his tweets,

33:18

and you're getting printouts sent to

33:20

him. How is that? How

33:22

is that working there? I think that's

33:24

something that's definitely brightening his day to see

33:26

that people out here are caring, and

33:28

he's able to still get his messaging out.

33:31

How is that working? Yeah,

33:33

I mean, actually, he's felt so frustrated

33:35

for all the years. The

33:37

lawyers saying, don't say anything, don't say anything. So now

33:40

he's like, I just want to let people know who

33:42

I am, that I'm not this monster that the media

33:44

paints me as and the government paints me as. And

33:46

so he's just sending

33:49

tweets to a friend

33:52

who puts the tweets for

33:54

him. He's originally... Not me, I'm not

33:56

really involved, but I'll retweet

33:59

him and everything. But I'm not really involved

34:01

in that. But it's by a letter, you

34:04

know, being able to write it out. And then, you

34:07

know, people are printing out the comments and sending them

34:09

to him. So he's able

34:11

to, you know, interact that way. How

34:14

could we, how could we kind of, how can we contact him?

34:16

Is there a simple way

34:18

for- You could write him a letter. You

34:20

could write him a letter, or you could comment on his Twitter

34:23

or whatever. You know,

34:25

you can, but he gets

34:27

mail. You know, he doesn't,

34:29

he's not allowed to have email

34:31

like every other pretty much inmate

34:33

because it's an internet crime. And, you know,

34:36

he might, I don't know, jump into the email

34:38

and fly away because he's so brilliant. I don't

34:40

know why they won't let him have it. They

34:42

let violent gang leaders who

34:44

have nationwide networks have email. Is

34:46

he in the, he's

34:48

in the Florence Max prison,

34:51

right? In Colorado. Not

34:53

the Supermax, thank God. It's not

34:55

the Supermax. It's the next step

34:57

down in Florence. Same compound, different

35:00

prison. So he's not in Supermax.

35:03

Well, basically what he's doing now is

35:05

basically just like the Supermax, but it's

35:07

temporary. Except he doesn't get outside

35:10

as much as the Supermax people do because they

35:12

get outside every day. But they're in solitary 23

35:14

hours. Well,

35:16

it's solitary the whole time, but they're inside 23

35:18

hours outside an hour. And

35:20

they built that prison. This really gets me

35:23

purposely to not have any windows facing

35:25

the mountains because actually it faces a

35:27

nice view. So those

35:29

people in the Supermax can't look out

35:31

the window. And I'm like, wow,

35:33

you really have to, you know, and Ross knows

35:36

non-violent people who have been put in the Supermax.

35:38

It's not like everybody there is an evil bill.

35:40

Well, I'm actually, I'm looking at the Wikipedia

35:42

page for the Supermax and that, you know,

35:44

it lists a lot of

35:47

the inmates, foreign terrorists, domestic terrorists,

35:49

double agents, cartel leaders, mafia figures.

35:51

And I'm thinking what must it

35:53

be like to, but he's not,

35:55

he's not interacting with those people.

35:59

And there's no violence. He has no violent charges

36:01

at all. His security score, everybody, every man

36:03

has a security score. His would put him

36:05

in a low security prison. The

36:08

only reason he's in the high security is because of his

36:10

sentence. There's no violence.

36:12

There's no, I mean, you know, so, uh,

36:15

yeah, I want to, I want to maybe dive

36:17

in a little deeper on something you mentioned earlier,

36:19

Lynn, when you said you mentioned

36:22

the term railroaded and how, you know, Ross was,

36:24

was railroaded and maybe what, what does that mean?

36:28

What does that mean? What does the extent of

36:30

being railroaded mean in this instance? Well,

36:32

it's a, it's actually the title of

36:34

a project. Um, railroaded the targeting and

36:36

caging of Ross Ulbricht is the title.

36:39

And, um, cause we realized that there's

36:41

so much that's not known that's in the public

36:43

record, but you gotta do a lot of digging.

36:45

It's not easy. So over

36:48

the last many, many, many months, a team

36:50

had, we've been putting together, uh, basically

36:53

a narrative of the record. It has

36:55

almost 400 footnotes. It's

36:58

all cited and, um, it's

37:00

that sounds boring, but it's actually quite compelling

37:02

when you start reading it or listening to

37:05

it. Cause we have an audio component. That's

37:08

really great that a voluntary

37:10

volunteer volunteer, uh, per

37:13

a supporter was a

37:15

professional narrator. He's dead and

37:17

he did a great job. And so, um,

37:19

it, it kind of lays

37:22

out the whole progress from

37:24

the investigation right on through to this,

37:26

this sentencing. It's pretty interesting.

37:29

We have it in three, six, I

37:31

mean, excuse me, in six segments, but

37:33

you know, railroaded means you've been kind

37:35

of, uh, in Ross's

37:37

case, he was used as their trophy. They

37:39

wanted somebody and he

37:41

was the perfect one. And you know,

37:43

uh, they, they're using

37:46

him like the head on the spike of the

37:48

medieval castle, right? You better not do what he

37:50

did or you're going to get this. Even

37:53

though Silk Road 2.0, the

37:56

person who was analogous to Ross in

37:58

terms of I don't know that

38:00

he created it, but he was convicted of being the

38:03

organizer. It was bigger than

38:05

Silk Road. It had more drug listings

38:07

and sales per month. He never

38:10

did any time. He was in custody for

38:12

13 days and he's now free. It's a secret

38:14

where he is. I guess I can't find

38:16

him. He's

38:18

free even though supposedly Ross is so dangerous,

38:20

he can never be let out. Yet

38:24

Blake Bentall is free. It's

38:26

not like it's fair or there's any kind of

38:30

equality under the law, which it's supposed to

38:32

be. So they

38:34

needed somebody and they railroaded Ross into

38:36

being that person. The website freeross.org

38:38

and you can watch Railroad there

38:41

and sign the petition there. Lynn,

38:44

you're going to be at World Crypticon

38:46

in Las Vegas and we're going to

38:48

be there and you're going

38:50

to be speaking. And of course,

38:52

I'm sure you're going to motivate a lot

38:55

of people who are there to sign the

38:57

petition, but you're also doing a charity auction.

39:00

Yeah, so nice that this

39:02

very well-known artist, really talented

39:05

man, Vessa, is

39:07

donating a painting. Well,

39:10

it's multimedia actually. It's really an

39:13

interesting painting or work of art, I

39:15

should say. And he's going

39:17

to, it's listed at $50,000 on

39:20

his website. So we're having

39:22

an auction and he is

39:24

going to donate half the proceeds to

39:28

our defense fund of Ross. I

39:30

mean, it's very expensive. It continues

39:32

to be really expensive. We

39:35

have several lawyers and lawyers

39:37

are really expensive. I should have gone

39:39

into law except I don't have the right kind of

39:41

brain. In any case, yeah,

39:44

so he's helping us out

39:46

and that's exciting. Yeah, we've

39:48

had Vessa on the show before. He's an

39:50

interesting character. He actually made a special

39:53

bad crypto work of art

39:56

as well that we put on

39:58

a t-shirt. So

40:00

we'll be there and we're going to help

40:03

with that auction. I believe if, uh, if

40:05

all the time, Hey

40:07

Sasha, you know, you are in the law

40:10

space, you know, maybe what, what else is

40:12

going on in, in the court system right

40:14

now pertaining to Ross. Is there any, any

40:16

updates or anything that we would like to

40:19

know about? Well, yeah. So Lynn,

40:21

Lynn mentioned this earlier. There's the habeas

40:23

petition or also known as a 2255

40:25

motion. And,

40:28

uh, it's basically claiming that there

40:30

was an ineffective, um, assistance

40:33

of counsel at the, at the

40:35

trial. And I

40:37

think there is a lot of merit

40:39

to that, to that motion. They're very

40:42

difficult to win. And, uh, it's kind

40:44

of like moving a mountain to get

40:46

this granted, but if it did, it

40:49

would mean they would have to redo

40:51

the trial and the judge that heard

40:53

the trial, I think, um, you know,

40:56

was pretty biased against Ross. She even

40:58

made some comments on the record saying that

41:00

she found the guilt to be overwhelming, which

41:03

the jury heard, which are judges never supposed

41:05

to say that, and I think that can

41:07

be that alone, you know,

41:09

the, the attorney should have challenged

41:11

that and, uh, and didn't. So

41:13

right there, that's a big thing

41:15

that that, that trial attorney Draytel

41:17

did that was wrong. And I

41:19

think could, could be used to

41:22

grant a new trial, but there's

41:24

a lot more than that, but,

41:26

but the fact that that judge

41:28

is retiring means that if this

41:30

motion did go through a different judge

41:32

would hear the trial and, uh, maybe,

41:34

you know, like, Oh, I think it's

41:36

likely that a different result might happen.

41:38

Maybe he would still get, um, some

41:42

time, like time served would probably be

41:44

included and maybe he would still be

41:46

found guilty of some crime, but not the

41:49

same sentence, or maybe they would just find

41:51

that, you know, that who knows what would

41:53

happen at, at a new trial. But I

41:55

think it would definitely be a different outcome.

41:58

And I think, uh, the times. are so

42:00

changed that the Bitcoin issue

42:02

wouldn't be something that

42:04

would be used against Ross. So

42:08

some of the issues that can be brought up

42:10

are the fact that the judge

42:12

poisoned the jury against Ross and said

42:14

that she thought the guilt was overwhelming

42:17

against him and that

42:19

the trial judge didn't comment on that.

42:23

And then also the

42:26

trial attorney, Draytel, he

42:28

made a lot of different choices and

42:30

the judge actually said a

42:33

few times she couldn't fathom the choices he

42:35

was making. And she

42:37

said that they were tactical choices though,

42:39

which there is

42:42

funny that she would refer to

42:45

them as tactical decisions, probably an

42:47

intentional thing because defendants are permitted

42:49

to attack the effectiveness of the

42:51

counsel's actions but not their tactical

42:53

decisions. So that'll be kind of

42:55

a nuanced issue but

42:58

it's all through the record her saying, oh,

43:00

I questioned this tactical decision. And

43:02

then there was issues around the

43:05

evidence. I think Lynn mentioned this that there

43:07

were very, it

43:09

was very clear that there are multiple

43:11

people running that website and someone logged

43:14

in as DPR while Ross was in

43:16

prison. And that was not told to

43:18

the jury and that information was there

43:20

and available to the attorney Draytel and

43:23

he didn't find it and didn't bring

43:25

it up. And that's a huge, that

43:28

would change the jury's mind in

43:30

making that conviction. I think a reasonable

43:33

person could conclude that if there's multiple

43:35

people logging in the website that it's

43:37

not just this individual. And

43:40

then there was also issues around the expert

43:42

witness. So they put

43:45

Andreas Anatinopoulos forward to be one

43:47

of the experts but Draytel, the

43:49

attorney, submitted Anatinopoulos'

43:52

old LinkedIn profile that

43:54

didn't have up-to-date

43:56

credentials on it. So the judge looked

43:58

at it and said, this is no expert. Meanwhile,

44:01

Andreas had a perfectly

44:04

up-to-date LinkedIn profile that Draytel

44:06

failed to print and

44:08

submit. So that led to,

44:11

and then Andreas has come out and said that if

44:13

he had been on the stand, he

44:15

would have disputed what the feds were saying.

44:17

They got some technical issues incorrect, and he

44:19

would have been able to correct that in

44:21

front of the jury and also

44:24

explain Bitcoin to the jury. And

44:26

I think he would have made a huge

44:28

difference to persuading the jury so that

44:30

we can attack that Draytel didn't

44:33

submit the right credentials for the

44:35

expert witness. And

44:38

there was a few

44:40

other things that aren't

44:42

as big, but basically

44:44

not objecting to her coaching

44:46

the prosecution. And so

44:49

this motion, even though

44:51

it's very rare that these get granted, I

44:54

think in this case, I'm

44:56

holding out a lot of hope for it. Well,

44:59

and I think that's the key is in the

45:01

attitude that Ross has is there's hope here. And

45:05

maybe with this president, this petition

45:07

can get there and he'll get

45:10

to look at it firsthand and

45:12

go, what? This

45:15

ain't right. So the

45:17

website, freeross.org, Lynn

45:19

and Sasha, thanks so much for coming

45:22

on and sharing with us and we're going to look forward

45:24

to seeing you in Las Vegas

45:27

and hopefully getting a bunch more people to

45:29

sign this petition. Yeah. Thanks

45:31

so much, guys. It's been really fun talking to you. See

45:34

you there. A

45:37

mother's love for her son.

45:40

She's never going to give up on this, right?

45:42

You know, there's just how do you stop when

45:45

your son is suffering in prison?

45:47

You know, it's very heartfelt story

45:50

and you got to your heart goes out to her.

45:53

And I think that as the perception

45:55

with cryptocurrency changes, Mr. Jocom, I think

45:57

that, you know, his case will

45:59

hopefully be revisited because I

46:02

mean seriously in 2013 Bitcoin

46:04

and crypto had a very bad rap

46:06

only only criminals used it and druggies

46:09

and that right and

46:11

you know it's turned into this thing

46:13

that is evolving and evolving the financial

46:15

industries and changing the world through blockchain

46:18

in many different industries we have a

46:20

front row seat here for this and

46:23

uh hopefully gets his sentence reduced

46:25

substantially because double life

46:28

that sucks like you die and you get reincarnated and then you

46:30

got to go back to jail or what that's

46:33

hard yeah I always thought that those

46:35

multiple life sentences were pretty stupid I

46:37

mean it's like what you did is

46:39

so bad that should you live again

46:41

you're still going to prison yeah you

46:43

know and it's never happened yet so I'm

46:46

gonna keep your ghost in prison whatever

46:48

I don't know do that I

46:50

don't know it's a shackle ghost it's

46:53

a special magic but hopefully

46:55

hopefully you know what I think what he

46:57

built was a was a pretty interesting platform

46:59

some people who got on there were buying

47:01

and selling some crazy stuff um

47:04

you know what and the law does not you

47:06

know take kindly to that kind of stuff and

47:08

here we are and so hopefully that gets resolved

47:11

for him in the future uh it sounds like

47:13

from hearing you know Lynn and Sasha that the

47:15

um that the judge was pretty biased and

47:18

uh there were some things in there that probably

47:20

should have been questioned so hopefully they get the

47:22

opportunity to to redo some of that stuff yeah

47:26

what a what a great trip down memory

47:28

lane that was right there and I mean

47:30

after hearing that like how I mean how

47:33

can you keep him in it doesn't make any sense

47:35

to me so I would say that's free Ross baby

47:37

and let's stay bad free ross.org is where

47:39

oh I said you just ended the show right

47:42

there never mind you guys never mind

47:44

you guys you just don't listen to what Joel's

47:46

saying right now because the show has ended already

47:48

totally caught me by surprise you like stay

47:51

bad at that super can't listen to

47:53

Joel it doesn't exist at this moment

47:56

it's already said stay bad not really

47:58

stay bad The

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