Silk Road founder gets life sentence for creating drug-selling website

Associated Press

NEW YORK

A San Francisco man who created the online drug-selling site Silk Road was sentenced Friday to life in prison by a judge who cited six deaths that resulted from drugs bought on his website and five people he tried to have killed.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest told 31-year-old Ross Ulbricht that he was a criminal even though he doesn’t fit the typical profile – he has two collegiate degrees – and she brushed aside his attempt to characterize the business as a big mistake.

“It was a carefully planned life’s work. It was your opus,” she said. “You are no better a person than any other drug dealer.”

Forrest said the sentence was necessary to show others who might follow his path that there are “very serious consequences.” She also ordered $183 million forfeiture. Prosecutors had not asked for a life sentence, saying only they wanted a prison term substantially longer than the 20-year mandatory minimum.

Ulbricht was convicted in February of operating the site for nearly three years from 2011 until his 2013 arrest.

Prosecutors say he collected $18 million in bitcoins through commissions on drug sales on a website containing thousands of listings under categories such as “Cannabis,” “Psychedelics” and “Stimulants.” They said he brokered more than 1 million drug deals worth more than $183 million while he operated on the site under the alias Dread Pirate Roberts – a reference to the swashbuckling character in “The Princess Bride.”

Ulbricht also is charged in Baltimore federal court in an attempted murder-for-hire scheme.