Lyn Ulbricht’s son, Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, currently sits behind bars waiting to learn his sentence for breaking multiple laws while running the online drug bazaar – and Lyn Ulbright believes that the U.S. government broke the law in putting him there.
Ulbricht was found guilty back in February of all seven charges for which he stood accused, including money laundering conspiracy, drug trafficking, computer hacking conspiracy and running a continuing criminal enterprise. As soon as the verdict was announced, Ulbricht’s lawyers stated that they planned to launch an appeal. Lyn, who was also vocal following the verdict, remains adamant that her son did not receive a fair trial.
“Evidence favorable to Ross, exculpatory evidence, was suppressed,” Lynn told uInterview in an exclusive interview. “It wasn’t permitted to come out. Witnesses were stopped from testifying on the behalf of the defense…. And also, the defense attorney was hamstrung by evidentiary rules that were put into place the fourth day of the trial from properly cross-examining and establishing reasonable doubt, which is his job.” “So, yes I’d say it was an unfair trial,” Lynn continued. “Due process rights were violated and that’s important for all of us, not just for Ross. So yeah, that is overstepping your bounds. The government had a very specific narrative and anything that deviated from that was not allowed to be heard. Ross’s libertarian/non-violent views were not allowed to be heard for example. Lots of things were erased.” One of the things that the government did want the jury to hear, according to Lyn, was the alleged murder-for-hire plot. In their investigation into Silk Road, investigators found conversations between Dread Pirate Roberts (believed to be Ulbricht’s pseudonym) and a possible member of the Hell’s Angels, in which murder-for-hire was discussed. Lyn believes the allegations, which have never been proven outside of the Internet, were merely used to inflame the jury.
Deep Web director Alex Winter, who is less quick to blanketly call Ulbricht’s trial unfair, agrees that the government may have broken the law during its investigation into Ulbricht and Silk Road and that the defense was not given adequate time to counter the prosecution’s claims.
“I can only say that it was very jarring… that it was just suddenly over and we never got to hear the explanations for how these things function and really worked,” Winter told uInterview. “It was just very here was what it was, here’s the prosecution’s comments. There really wasn’t time for the defense to make any sort of rebuttal and these issues are complicated. And so It was very unsatisfying.”
Deep Web, Winter’s documentary on Ross Ulbricht’s case and Silk Road, premieres on EPIX on May 31.
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