Ross Ulbricht, accused and convicted of running the underground marketplace the Silk Road, is funding his appeal through art. Ross is currently serving a triple life sentence.
Ulbricht created an original piece of art titled “Two Face Tango”. Presumably, he is using the small, prison-issued pencils. The Free Ross campaign is not revealing the art yet. Instead, donors pay one dollar to reveal a small portion of the artwork. This follows the same pattern as a previous campaign. There are 9,350 squares available for purchase. Twenty-one squares are “lucky” and will win you a One Ounce Silver Liberty Dollar from Roberts & Roberts Brokerage [who, it should be noted, accepts bitcoin]. The campaign accepts bitcoin and PayPal donations.
Ross Ulbricht was convicted on February 4th 2015 and sentenced to the equivalent of three life sentences. According to Ulbricht’s defense lawyer, he deserves a new case. Ulbricht’s defense team isn’t the only one who thinks that way either. Many observers have raised questions about how fair his first case was.
Two of the agents involved in the Silk Road investigation were convicted on charges of corruption. One of them, FBI agent Carl Mark Force IV, owned multiple accounts on the Silk Road, unbeknownst to his superiors. Force and Secret Service Agent Shaun Bridges fleeced hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Bitcoin without reporting the hauls to their superiors. The agents also blackmailed the Silk Road administrator and provided him with information on the government’s investigation.
The defense claims that the prosecution withheld information from them. The defense also questions why it was prevented from presenting expert witnesses that called the government’s evidence gathering techniques into question. Security experts at the time publicly doubted the government’s explanation of how it located the Silk Road servers and some have accused the government of obtaining that information illegally.
The 170 page appeal is about twice as long as a normal appeal. It includes a lot more information than can be covered here. You can read more at the official FreeRoss website. We will continue to update you on the case.