Forman Christian College University
Course Code: Psyc 385
Course Title: Forensic Psychology
Ross Ulbrich, an entrepreneur who grew up in Austin Texas, invented a private and secure
system which could be used to create a free market. It could help users make transactions using
bitcoin anonymously without paying taxes.
He named this the “Silk Road” in 2011, calling himself the Dread Pirate Roberts, online. It run
fine until 2013 when an Australian distributer was arrested and told the police all he knew about
the people using the network. They took control of his online account, did not tell anybody that
he was arrested and began to use it. They sold drugs form his account to other people on the Silk
Road to gather intelligence. They then began giving minimal sentences to the users on the Silk
Road.
In 2013 in a library at San Francisco, a nerd was logged into the Silk Road from an admins
account. The police found out, barged in and arrested Ross Ulbricht. He was charged for
computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic narcotics, money laundering, and attempting to have 6
people killed. The murders are known to be fabricated by the state, alleging that he had 700,000$
to have several people killed though the murders never took place. However, the murder charges
were dropped after the trial. He was given two life sentences consecutively without parole.
In the discussion we had in class, students identified all of the facts mentioned above. As for the
case of Ross’s punishment, I agree with most students who stated the sentence was too severe.
Firstly, I believe so because the story about the murders seems to be completely fabricated only
to make the public believe that Ross was extremely evil and deserved the punishment they
intended to give him. Secondly, Ross only believed in freedom, he wanted to exercise his right of
Course Code: Psyc 385
Course Title: Forensic Psychology
Ross Ulbrich, an entrepreneur who grew up in Austin Texas, invented a private and secure
system which could be used to create a free market. It could help users make transactions using
bitcoin anonymously without paying taxes.
He named this the “Silk Road” in 2011, calling himself the Dread Pirate Roberts, online. It run
fine until 2013 when an Australian distributer was arrested and told the police all he knew about
the people using the network. They took control of his online account, did not tell anybody that
he was arrested and began to use it. They sold drugs form his account to other people on the Silk
Road to gather intelligence. They then began giving minimal sentences to the users on the Silk
Road.
In 2013 in a library at San Francisco, a nerd was logged into the Silk Road from an admins
account. The police found out, barged in and arrested Ross Ulbricht. He was charged for
computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic narcotics, money laundering, and attempting to have 6
people killed. The murders are known to be fabricated by the state, alleging that he had 700,000$
to have several people killed though the murders never took place. However, the murder charges
were dropped after the trial. He was given two life sentences consecutively without parole.
In the discussion we had in class, students identified all of the facts mentioned above. As for the
case of Ross’s punishment, I agree with most students who stated the sentence was too severe.
Firstly, I believe so because the story about the murders seems to be completely fabricated only
to make the public believe that Ross was extremely evil and deserved the punishment they
intended to give him. Secondly, Ross only believed in freedom, he wanted to exercise his right of
