Judge Katherine Forrest sat in her chambers for a moment before placing the long black robe over her shoulders and making her way to courtroom 15A. The jury had found Ross Ulbricht guilty, and it was time for her to hand down the sentence.
In the weeks leading up to the sentencing, the prosecution and the defense had implored the judge to take one path or another. Ross’s family and friends wrote long and thoughtful letters begging for his release or, at the very least, the shortest sentence possible. Lyn had written to Judge Forrest, as a mother, begging for mercy. “I beseech you to make his sentence no longer than necessary and give Ross the chance to rectify his mistakes.”
Ross had even written to the judge himself, explaining that he knew now that jail was not an easy place to live in and that, while losing his freedom had been painful, the pain he had inflicted on his family had been catastrophic. He was naive; he regretted his actions; he hadn’t thought through what he was doing when he started the Silk Road. Then, toward the end of his letter, Ross pleaded for leniency. “I’ve had my youth, and I know you must take away my middle years, but please leave me my old age.”
Courtroom 15A was so full on the afternoon of May 29, 2015, that another spillover courtroom was set up with a live video feed of the proceedings. Metal detectors had been placed outside for added security after an online vigilante had published the judge’s personal information online, including her home address, together with a note that read: “Fuck this stupid bitch and I hope some drug cartel that lost a lot of money with the seizure of silk road will murder this lady and her entire family.”
The prosecution presented its argument for a sentence longer than twenty years. They had flown out the parents of some of the young teens and adults who had overdosed and died from drugs they had purchased on the Silk Road, including the mother of Preston Bridges, who wept as she told the story of the last time she ever saw her son, the night he went off to his Year 12 Ball in Perth, Australia.
The defense rebutted with “character witnesses” who had known Ross since he was a child, people who told stories of his altruism and his kindness. And then Ross stood up and spoke himself. “One of the things I have realized about the law is that the laws of nature are much like the laws of man. Gravity doesn’t care if you agree with it—if you jump off a cliff you are still going to get hurt.” He ended with a heartfelt apology.
“Thank you, Mr. Ulbricht,” the judge said as Ross returned to his seat. Judge Forrest then told the court that they would take a fifteen-minute break.
• • •
At first, as Judge Forrest started the delivery of Ross’s sentence, she was calm yet resolute. She explained that she wanted to walk Ross, and the rest of the courtroom, through the exhaustive thinking she had gone through to arrive at this sentence.
She began explaining that the site was clearly Ross’s creation and that it was not just an experiment, not a lightbulb moment, but something that had been planned for well over a year before it opened for business, that it was meant as an attack on the democracy of the country she had been appointed to protect. “You were captain of the ship, as the Dread Pirate Roberts, and you made your own laws and you enforced those laws in the manner that you saw fit,” she said to Ross as she glared at him. “It was, in fact, a carefully planned life’s work. It was your opus. You wanted it to be your legacy—and it is.”
The judge noted that the defense had presented research papers that argued that increased drug distribution could be morally better for society by reducing violence and encouraging the sale of better-quality and therefore safer drugs. By this Judge Forrest seemed incensed. It was as if Ross had been arguing that just because he had sold drugs from behind a computer, he was different.
“No drug dealer from the Bronx selling meth or heroin or crack has ever made these kinds of arguments to the Court,” Judge Forrest said. “It is a privileged argument. You are no better a person than any other drug dealer, and your education does not give you a special place of privilege in our criminal justice system.”
She talked about the collateral damage of drugs. Ross had argued that drug use takes place in a cocoon and doesn’t harm anyone but the person who takes the drugs. But in her eyes that was not the case. There are often ancillary people who are hurt as the result of dangerous substances that had been sold on the Silk Road, she said. People die. Junkies are created. There are social costs, and in many instances drug addicts lose their ability to care for their children and a generation can grow up neglected.
She addressed the murders, noting that, sure, no bodies had been found, but that in her mind that did not matter. “Did you commission a murder? Five? Yes,” she scolded. “Did you pay for it? Yes. Did you get photographs relating to what you thought was the result of that murder? Yes.”
As she came to a close, she looked at Ross and said, “What is clear is that people are very, very complex and you are one of them. There is good in you, Mr. Ulbricht, I have no doubt, but there is also bad, and what you did in connection with Silk Road was terribly destructive to our social fabric.”
The courtroom fell silent as Judge Forrest asked Ross to rise.
Thirty-year-old Ross stood and arched his neck upward as he looked at the judge, contemplating what she was about to say. His mother and father sat in the back of the courtroom watching Ross and the judge as she began to speak.
“Mr. Ulbricht, it is my judgment delivered here, now, on behalf of our country, that on counts two and four you are sentenced to a period of life imprisonment,” the judge declared. She then added another forty years to his sentence for the other counts. Ross stood there, unmoved by the words he was hearing. Behind him, in the benches of the courtroom, all that could be heard was the uninterrupted sound of cries. “In the federal system,” the judge continued, “there is no parole and you shall serve your life in prison.”