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The lesson learned from Ross Ulbricht is that there's a good chance it's Leavenworth for non-violent internet crime. Edit: per usual folks come out of the wood

The lesson learned from Ross Ulbricht is that there's a good chance it's Leavenworth for non-violent internet crime. Edit: per usual folks come out of the woodwork to accuse Ross of murder-for-hire despite the fact he was not convicted of any murder related charge, only generic conspiracies for which the overt act could have been a number of options (such as drug distribution). The jury never specifically said the overt act they convicted the conspiracy was murder for hire, yet the judge sentenced him as if he were guilty of that.

jamiek88 4y ago
Ross literally hired hitmen to kill someone who owed him money. The fact that he didn’t know it was an undercover agent (pro tip if you hire a hit man and you aren’t customarily in ‘that life’ you are always hiring an undercover agent) is irrelevant. He still required and received ‘proof’ of the deed, a photo of the aftermath, staged of course. He was even cold blooded with the ‘collateral damage’ of the intended victims family being home when the hit was to go down. All this was taken into account at sentencing. The attempt to whitewash Ross into a sympathetic internet hero figure like Aaron Swartz is transparent and wrong.
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
  If that actually happened, why didn't they prosecute him for it?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - toss1 4y ago
    Just like most habitual criminals, even serial murderers — focusing limited resources on the easier-to-convict and sufficient-jail-time crimes. Nothing says they have to prosecute every single crime. So, yes, just because it isn't prosecuted, doesn't mean there wasn't a crime committed, it just didn't result in a conviction. They already got a life in prison and forfeiting $183,961,921 [0]. They don't need more, and there are other criminals to prosecute. [0] https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/ross-ulbricht-aka-dread-pirate-roberts-sentenced-manhattan-federal-court-life-prison https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/ross-ulbricht-aka-dread...
  - vkou 4y ago
    Because the other stuff he did was also enough to put him away forever. The better question is: "Why are people so insistant on whitewashing him?" Do they not think that hiring a contract killer is, like, no big deal? Do they regularly pretend to hire them? Are they just closing ranks around him because they think he's part of their in-tribe?
    - kelnos 4y ago
      I think the point is that justice shouldn't be arbitrary like that. If you are convicted of certain crimes, your sentence -- even within the range appropriate for those crimes -- should not take into account other crimes that the person was suspected of committing, but it couldn't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. That's the entire point of evidentiary standards: in the first place, it's to avoid putting people in jail at all if we can't prove they did it to a particular level of confidence. But we should also not be inflating sentences (again, even if the end result is still within the guided range for the convicted crimes) just because we think they did other, worse things too. Maybe Ulbrict did deserve a much longer sentence. But the prosecution apparently could not prove the more serious crimes. His sentence should not be influenced by things the prosecution could not prove. I'm sure there are other defendants who were convicted of crimes, but suspected of worse crimes that they didn't actually commit in reality. Maybe Ulbricht got what he deserved, but these other people got worse than they deserved. > Do they not think that hiring a contract killer is, like, no big deal? To sum up: what people think about this is entirely irrelevant. He was not convicted for hiring a contract killer, so that should have zero bearing on his sentence. Even if his sentence was in the range appropriate for what he was convicted for, it's a range, and if his sentence was pushed higher in that range because of other things the judge believed he did, that's not justice.
  - AbrahamParangi 4y ago
    He was indicted in federal court for it but his indictment was dropped after he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. There does seem to be very little point in winning a conviction on that front.
    - notch898a 4y ago
      But yet not evidence he was convicted of anything but non-violent internet crime.
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > not evidence he was convicted of anything but non-violent internet crime I'm not sure where one is supposed to find sympathy for someone convicted of a crime, and looking likely to have attempted violent crimes, having their sentence strengthened on the latter's basis (within the confines of the primary sentence's guidelines). Should Al Capone have been treated like a usual tax dodger? Of course not. He's a high risk to others in his prison as well as to society. We don't require beyond reasonable doubt for sentencing because it doesn't make sense.
        notch898a 4y ago
        Should Al Capone have been treated like a usual tax dodger? Of course. Al Capone being cited so often is precisely why I believe he should have been treated like a usual tax dodger for the tax crimes and treated like a murderer for any murder convictions. I would much rather Al Capone go free than short-circuit justice in this way.
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > short-circuit justice in this way I'm failing to see the short circuiting. Tax dodging sentencing guidelines have a range. Capone was sentenced within that range. Same as Ulbricht. We don't re-hear a trial in front of a jury every time someone is sentenced because the jury has already rendered the verdict. Sentencing is a complicated subject which balances not only justice, but also the safety of the prisoner and their fellow prisoners.
  - Analemma_ 4y ago
    I think the people constantly repeating this line don't understand how prosecutions actually work. Since all crimes have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to get a conviction, and some take more work/paper trail to do this than others, if someone is up on a bunch of charges, prosecutors will order them by easiest-to-hardest to prove, and then if the easiest ones are sufficient to put the person away for life, they'll focus on those and discard the rest. This happens all the time. It is not unique to Ulbricht, and does not really imply anything about whether the contract killing request did or didn't happen.
    - notch898a 4y ago
      Ross was convicted on the generic conspiracy (which does not depend on violent acts) and then sentenced on preponderance of the evidence of the individual possible overt act that one of the conspiracy acts was murder for hire. Not sentenced based on beyond reasonable doubt he did the murder for hire. The fact is the way "prosecution actually works" is you accuse someone of a generic conspiracy, show some element of the conspiracy was beyond a reasonable doubt true (like drug distribution), and then go to sentencing considering any element by preponderance of the evidence. It's a chilling short-circuiting of justice. Ross wasn't convicted of violent acts beyond a reasonable doubt, he was convicted of a continuing criminal enterprise where a judge thought it was more likely than not involved murder-for-hire.
    - kelnos 4y ago
      But that's exactly the point: Ulbricht was not convicted of a violent crime (regardless of what people here believe or don't believe he actually did), and yet he was sentenced as if he had been. That is literally the only point the ancestor poster was making: that if you have the means to run, it might not be so cushy a plan to turn yourself in for a non-violent crime, if you're assuming you'll get a sentence of less than 10 years at a reasonably safe low-security prison. And in this particular case, the interesting point is: even if the prosecution didn't believe they could get a conviction for possible murder-for-hire charges, they somehow still got the desired final outcome: a sentence seemingly harsher than what would fit the crime he actually was convicted of. (Then again, if your "only" crimes are non-violent/white-collar, maybe it is safe to assume you'll get a cushy prison sentence.)
  - temprose 4y ago
    Same reason Al Capone was taken down on tax evasion charges.
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
I believe that ol’ Dreaddie got just a wee bit more than ten years.
- paulpauper 4y ago
  and likely so will SBF white collar sentences are so long these days.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

jamiek88 4y ago

Ross literally hired hitmen to kill someone who owed him money. The fact that he didn’t know it was an undercover agent (pro tip if you hire a hit man and you aren’t customarily in ‘that life’ you are always hiring an undercover agent) is irrelevant. He still required and received ‘proof’ of the deed, a photo of the aftermath, staged of course. He was even cold blooded with the ‘collateral damage’ of the intended victims family being home when the hit was to go down. All this was taken into account at sentencing. The attempt to whitewash Ross into a sympathetic internet hero figure like Aaron Swartz is transparent and wrong.

zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
If that actually happened, why didn't they prosecute him for it?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- toss1 4y ago
  Just like most habitual criminals, even serial murderers — focusing limited resources on the easier-to-convict and sufficient-jail-time crimes. Nothing says they have to prosecute every single crime. So, yes, just because it isn't prosecuted, doesn't mean there wasn't a crime committed, it just didn't result in a conviction. They already got a life in prison and forfeiting $183,961,921 [0]. They don't need more, and there are other criminals to prosecute. [0] https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/ross-ulbricht-aka-dread-pirate-roberts-sentenced-manhattan-federal-court-life-prison https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/ross-ulbricht-aka-dread...
- vkou 4y ago
  Because the other stuff he did was also enough to put him away forever. The better question is: "Why are people so insistant on whitewashing him?" Do they not think that hiring a contract killer is, like, no big deal? Do they regularly pretend to hire them? Are they just closing ranks around him because they think he's part of their in-tribe?
  - kelnos 4y ago
    I think the point is that justice shouldn't be arbitrary like that. If you are convicted of certain crimes, your sentence -- even within the range appropriate for those crimes -- should not take into account other crimes that the person was suspected of committing, but it couldn't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. That's the entire point of evidentiary standards: in the first place, it's to avoid putting people in jail at all if we can't prove they did it to a particular level of confidence. But we should also not be inflating sentences (again, even if the end result is still within the guided range for the convicted crimes) just because we think they did other, worse things too. Maybe Ulbrict did deserve a much longer sentence. But the prosecution apparently could not prove the more serious crimes. His sentence should not be influenced by things the prosecution could not prove. I'm sure there are other defendants who were convicted of crimes, but suspected of worse crimes that they didn't actually commit in reality. Maybe Ulbricht got what he deserved, but these other people got worse than they deserved. > Do they not think that hiring a contract killer is, like, no big deal? To sum up: what people think about this is entirely irrelevant. He was not convicted for hiring a contract killer, so that should have zero bearing on his sentence. Even if his sentence was in the range appropriate for what he was convicted for, it's a range, and if his sentence was pushed higher in that range because of other things the judge believed he did, that's not justice.
- AbrahamParangi 4y ago
  He was indicted in federal court for it but his indictment was dropped after he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. There does seem to be very little point in winning a conviction on that front.
  - notch898a 4y ago
    But yet not evidence he was convicted of anything but non-violent internet crime.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > not evidence he was convicted of anything but non-violent internet crime I'm not sure where one is supposed to find sympathy for someone convicted of a crime, and looking likely to have attempted violent crimes, having their sentence strengthened on the latter's basis (within the confines of the primary sentence's guidelines). Should Al Capone have been treated like a usual tax dodger? Of course not. He's a high risk to others in his prison as well as to society. We don't require beyond reasonable doubt for sentencing because it doesn't make sense.
      - notch898a 4y ago
        Should Al Capone have been treated like a usual tax dodger? Of course. Al Capone being cited so often is precisely why I believe he should have been treated like a usual tax dodger for the tax crimes and treated like a murderer for any murder convictions. I would much rather Al Capone go free than short-circuit justice in this way.
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > short-circuit justice in this way I'm failing to see the short circuiting. Tax dodging sentencing guidelines have a range. Capone was sentenced within that range. Same as Ulbricht. We don't re-hear a trial in front of a jury every time someone is sentenced because the jury has already rendered the verdict. Sentencing is a complicated subject which balances not only justice, but also the safety of the prisoner and their fellow prisoners.
- Analemma_ 4y ago
  I think the people constantly repeating this line don't understand how prosecutions actually work. Since all crimes have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to get a conviction, and some take more work/paper trail to do this than others, if someone is up on a bunch of charges, prosecutors will order them by easiest-to-hardest to prove, and then if the easiest ones are sufficient to put the person away for life, they'll focus on those and discard the rest. This happens all the time. It is not unique to Ulbricht, and does not really imply anything about whether the contract killing request did or didn't happen.
  - notch898a 4y ago
    Ross was convicted on the generic conspiracy (which does not depend on violent acts) and then sentenced on preponderance of the evidence of the individual possible overt act that one of the conspiracy acts was murder for hire. Not sentenced based on beyond reasonable doubt he did the murder for hire. The fact is the way "prosecution actually works" is you accuse someone of a generic conspiracy, show some element of the conspiracy was beyond a reasonable doubt true (like drug distribution), and then go to sentencing considering any element by preponderance of the evidence. It's a chilling short-circuiting of justice. Ross wasn't convicted of violent acts beyond a reasonable doubt, he was convicted of a continuing criminal enterprise where a judge thought it was more likely than not involved murder-for-hire.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    But that's exactly the point: Ulbricht was not convicted of a violent crime (regardless of what people here believe or don't believe he actually did), and yet he was sentenced as if he had been. That is literally the only point the ancestor poster was making: that if you have the means to run, it might not be so cushy a plan to turn yourself in for a non-violent crime, if you're assuming you'll get a sentence of less than 10 years at a reasonably safe low-security prison. And in this particular case, the interesting point is: even if the prosecution didn't believe they could get a conviction for possible murder-for-hire charges, they somehow still got the desired final outcome: a sentence seemingly harsher than what would fit the crime he actually was convicted of. (Then again, if your "only" crimes are non-violent/white-collar, maybe it is safe to assume you'll get a cushy prison sentence.)
- temprose 4y ago
  Same reason Al Capone was taken down on tax evasion charges.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

I believe that ol’ Dreaddie got just a wee bit more than ten years.

paulpauper 4y ago
and likely so will SBF white collar sentences are so long these days.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]