Maine Senator Vows to Speak with Donald Trump About Silk Road’s Ross Ulbricht


Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 10/08/2018 - 00:28

Cryptocurrency, Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht–Eric Brakey, a Republican Senator from Maine, has been in contact with Ross Ulbricht over the conditions and extent of his imprisonment–which currently involved two life sentences for his involvement in The Silk Road, one of cryptocurrency’s oldest and most notorious bouts with illicit activity.

A series of back and forth tweets between the senator and Ulbricht, who is currently incarcerated and communicating via a third party transcription, has culminated in Eric Brakey stating to bring up the issue of Ulbricht’s clemency with U.S. President Donald Trump.

What started as a plea from Ulbricht on August 3 to sign his petition for clemency through the website Change.org led Senator Eric Brakey to respond with,

“Hey Ross–I’ve signed your petition. You have very clearly been treated unfairly by our criminal system and my heart is with you and your family. Next time I am in Colorado, I’d like to come visit and help if I can.”

Since that time Ulbricht and the Senator have exchanged tweets, with Ulbricht thanking the Senator for recognizing his plight to bring recognition to the severity of his sentencing–a penalty that many have found to harsh given the evolving landscape of cryptocurrency, drug policy and online marketplaces.

For those curious how Ulbricht has managed to keep a line of communication through Twitter, he relies upon transcription by trusted friends and family in relayed messages, explaining,

“Fyi, I’ve been dictating my tweets over the phone and they get posted word for word. Then the comments get printed and arrive in the mail a few days later. So far, so good, but if the prison goes on an extended lockdown, I’ll have to send my tweets out via snail mail.”

While Ulbricht’s charges go beyond operating the now infamous Silk Road exchange, where customers were able to purchase everything from drugs to weapons and other illicit services using the mostly anonymous cryptocurrency Bitcoin, his imposed punishment of two life sentences and subsequent appeals have left him with no other choice but to pursue direct clemency from the President of the United States Donald Trump. Despite being denied a petition to appeal his sentencing before the Supreme Court, Ulbricht has managed to rise from relative obscurity and obtain over 84,000 signatures on Change.org, including a resolution passed by the Libertarian Party of the United States pleading with the President to consider Ulbricht for Clemency. No doubt, the growing following has helped him draw the attention of Senator Eric Brakey, who responded in September stating that he will “definitely raise the issue with the President.”

Ulbricht’s creation of The Silk Road has been a perpetual black eye for the industry of cryptocurrency. While the former founder carries out his double life sentence in prison, much of the general public outside of cryptocurrency and crypto investing still views the industry with a tinge of the illicit nature and bad actor anonymity that made international headlines during the operational years for The Silk Road. While adoption via IBM, Volkswagen and other major companies has provided legitimacy to cryptocurrency, the magnitude of the scandal likely set back crytpo a number of years.

The post Maine Senator Vows to Speak with Donald Trump About Silk Road’s Ross Ulbricht appeared first on Ethereum World News.