Ulbricht, sentenced to life in prison in 2015, given ‘full and unconditional’ pardon by president
  • AlDente@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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    2 days ago

    This was one of the biggest requests of the Libertarian Party and Trump followed through with it. Could you imagine the Democratic Party agreeing to any demand from the Green Party in an attempt to get votes?

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Didn’t Donald the Jester say something about fighting crime before the election? And then he drops thousands of hard criminals back on the street?

  • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.eeEnglish
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    2 days ago

    He referred to the prosecutors as scum and said they were the ones who were persecuting him like it was some purely political shit when he is an incredibly prolific fraudsters, rapist, and traitor. He should have been arrested during the Jan 6th insurrection and never allowed free again.

    His reasoning was that Ross was a libertarian and this is to honor the libertarian movement that supported him… dude! He labeled the fucking drug cartels terrorist organizations and Ross enabled so much drug trafficking it isn’t funny. How the fuck do people not see through that?

    • explodicle@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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      2 days ago

      Here’s my convoluted conspiracy theory for how this makes sense.

      • Trump launches Trump Coin

      • Trump pardons crypto drug dealer, but not paper drug dealers

      • Crypto market booms

      • Trump sells coin to whichever idiots he hasn’t scammed yet

      • VerifiedSource@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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        1 day ago

        I also think this is some crypto bro shenanigans. Ulbricht might even have billions in Bitcoin stashed away somewhere for a juicy payback.

        • explodicle@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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          1 day ago

          You can already do that with any cryptocurrency using a mixer. And some of them already have strong privacy built in or available as add-ons.

          • BilboBargains@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            The judicial system in America is obviously not about what is written in their legal statutes or the veracity of the evidence presented. Otherwise war criminals, fraudsters and rapists like Bush, Cheney, Trump and Clinton would be in prison. It is about advancing an agenda for a white male US hegemony and that explains most of the outcomes, e.g. black people being enslaved in prison. Ulbricht thumbed his nose at the establishment and they got pissy. Assange and Snowden revealed their crimes and they hunted them to the ends of the earth. The CIA and their stooges, the Swedes fabricated a rape allegation against Assange that was quietly dismissed, unfulfilled, seven years later. This establishment will stop at nothing to assert their authority and you wonder about evidence in the Ulbricht case?

            • MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              No I don’t wonder because again that evidence was used to convict the DEA agents that stole from Silk Road. You are linking a bunch of things that have nothing to do with each other. The pattern you are seeing is an illusion

      • NSRXN@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 days ago

        it was to kill competition who were threatening to kill him. id say if the law won’t protect you, you are free to protect yourself

        • AugustWest@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Edit: I wrote a whole comment about this and the corrupt DEA agents involved in pushing him into a murder-for-hire scheme who were also working as moderators for the Silk Road, and later went to prison for crimes surrounding the ordeal.

          But I decided against it, because the fact remains that it is likely he did attempt to have people killed. It was due to threats of exposing him, not threats on his life. And the fact is that him likely being entrapped is a good legal defense but not a good moral one.

          If we ignore everything involving the possible contract murder deals, I say that his release is wonderful. Considering he was never convicted of any of the murder for hire stuff, his sentence was draconian, and marked a real shift in the freedom of the internet. As to Trump, even a broken clock is right twice every 78 years.

          But this release is not so sweet knowing what Ross may have and likely tried to do in order to hang onto his crumbling empire.

            • AugustWest@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              I really don’t know, but I doubt they would. It’s possible for the original 5 instances he was accused of, as he was never tried but the district court conceded he probably did it.

              The 6th, later and more famous instance? Probably not. He was actually indicted for that in Maryland, but it was a weak case that was dropped once he was convicted of his other drug and financial crimes. In the later incident, the hitman who he purportedly hired was Carl Force; the corrupt DEA agent. At best, Force’s action constituted entrapment. At worst, the whole story is unreliable. Either way, I can’t see any government agency thrilled about dragging the details of that situation out of obscurity.

    • xor@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
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      2 days ago

      even a broken clock is right twice a day…

      this was probably timed to distract from the whole, nazi salute controversy.

  • twistypencil@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I didn’t even notice that this happened:

    Today, President Biden granted Leonard Peltier executive clemency and commuted the remainder of his sentence.

    • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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      2 days ago

      commuted the remainder of his sentence.

      Commuted it to home fucking arrest, not even full clemancy.

      • Eezyville@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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        2 days ago

        Of course they do. This is how they cope with anything Trump related. They come up with conspiracy theories.

              • Eezyville@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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                2 days ago

                I don’t think that Ulbricht had the capability to bribe Trump. I think that Lemmy and Reddit users are trying to justify Trump’s pardon by saying it was done through illegal activity (bribery) instead of campaign promises. That’s why I say they are making up conspiracy theories. Now I believe he can be bribed because of all the felonies he got from issuing bribes.

                • MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  Gotcha, I still think he got paid for this because Ross was in for hiring a hitman which is an odd thing for Trump to pardon.

        • Rhoeri@lemmy.worldEnglish
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          2 days ago

          Soooo…. Do you not know what lawyers and trusts are and what they do? If not, have an adult explain these things to you when you can, if so….

          Why embarrass yourself wish such an ignorant comment?

        • Spookyghost@sh.itjust.works
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          2 days ago

          Kodak black paid 2mil for a pardon the first time. This is highly likely to be true, you are either uniformed, a bot, or in on the grift.

          • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
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            2 days ago

            Ross was an idiot, that’s why he was caught. They seized all his remaining bitcoin, what hadn’t been stolen by hackers because, again, he was an idiot and the Silk Road was slapped together from code cobbled from other places. There’s no way the dude was smart enough to set some aside for bribes in case he got caught, because he was so sure he wouldn’t that he advertised the Silk Road using his personal email with his real name in forum posts.

            While I don’t think he deserved life in prison, he sure as hell ended up there because of how ridiculously idiotic he was. The dude isn’t smart enough to be a manager at Arby’s, let alone run a criminal enterprise.

            • NSRXN@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              2 days ago

              they didn’t catch him because of bad opsec, unless you consider Tor to be bad opsec. they caught him with a parallel reconstruction after the NSA illegally spied on him.

              change my mind

            • Sturgist@lemmy.ca
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              2 days ago

              isn’t smart enough to be a manager at Arby’s

              Hey buddy, chill, there’s almost certainly talented doctors from other countries who couldn’t afford to recertify managing at least 2 Arby’s…and those will be the only 2 you don’t get food poisoning from.

              • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
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                2 days ago

                That is completely missing my point. I’m sure there’s literal rocket scientists who have had to work at Arby’s to make ends meet, but that has nothing to do with Ross lacking the intellect to properly manage one. We’re not talking about immigrant doctors in this thread.

          • Eezyville@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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            2 days ago
            1. How did he pay all that money while in prison?
            2. Where are you getting your facts about Ross from besides your ass?
            • MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              Lawyers ir anyone that has power of attorney can make payments on your behalf. How do you think people pay mortgages or make payments in jail?

                • MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  I never said it was. I specified who can make payments for you while you are serving time. The fact you think this can’t happen or that the prison has any involvement in this is really off

                  edit: It should say Lawyers OR not ir perhaps that’s the confusion?

              • Eezyville@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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                2 days ago

                This is incredibly stupid. Prison officials will do everything they can to prevent an inmate from moving around assets for VERY OBVIOUS reasons. But, after thinking about it, it may not be so obvious for this echo chamber so let me explain the obvious.

                You are an inmate in prison. You made millions doing your illegal thing while free but you hare now doing hard time. You don’t like hard time, you want easy or no time. How do you make your life better while in prison. Wait, you have millions. You’ll just use that money to have your way with the guards and prison system. Guard giving you trouble? Use your assets that you’ve amassed to “get rid of them”.

                The prison system has protocols and processes in place to prevent all inmates from being able to control any assets they have on the outside. This prevents them from committing further crimes, exerting influence, or running an enterprise (criminal or legal) while incarcerated.

  • stevedice@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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    3 days ago

    I remember this guy being a fucking idiot that paid for several fake assassinations of fake rivals. It was pretty funny.

    • owl@infosec.pubEnglish
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      3 days ago

      It is funny in hindsight, knowing the assassinations were a scam. But he thought they were real, he talked in great detail about them and payed for them. This is missing from the article, I believe it was part of his indictment.

      • stevedice@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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        2 days ago

        Oh yeah, he’s a piece of shit for sure. I just think it’s funny that he’s also a moron. What kind of drug lord gets a message saying “Hey, I heard of a guy who wants to take you down, wire me a cool mil and I’ll kill him for you, k?” and just… sends the money? More than once?! He definitely tried to rescue an overthrown Nigerian prince as a kid.

        • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
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          2 days ago

          Don’t forget, he was caught because he posted his email in a public forum while advertising the Silk Road. That email address contained his real name.

          • Hubi@feddit.org
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            1 day ago

            Don’t forget, he was caught because he posted his email in a public forum while advertising the Silk Road

            Even better, he asked a question on StackOverflow lol

            • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
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              2 days ago

              Honestly, the only reason he’s famous at all is because the Silk Road was used to drum up shock by the media, so the government used him as an example to those who would make them look bad. Otherwise, he would have faded into obscurity like every other idiot criminal who stumbled into short term riches.

        • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          2 days ago

          Yeah, when I watched a synopsis of the story, multiple alarm bells rang in my head midway through watching it. He’s so gullible for how rich he fucking was

          So the twist that was that they were all the same person, didn’t even surprise me, you could see that it was a scam a mile away if you were paying attention

          The scammer was pretty good, though, I will give them that. Too bad the scammer was also pretty dumb about how the handle the money after the fact, and got caught lmao.