Speaker 1: He went by the pseudonym dread Pirate Roberts, after the
Speaker 1: character in the movie of the Princess Bride. He ran
Speaker 1: a multimillion dollar online black market where people bought drugs,
Speaker 1: hacking tools, and false identification. Now Ross William Albrich, the
Speaker 1: thirty three year old founder of the Silk Road Internet bazaar,
Speaker 1: is looking at a lifetime in prison after a federal
Speaker 1: appeals court upheld his conviction for drug trafficking and other
Speaker 1: other crimes. It was a three nothing decision, but it
Speaker 1: took a hundred and thirty nine pages, and along the
Speaker 1: way the court question the wisdom of such harsh sentences.
Speaker 1: With us to talk about it is Bloomberg News as
Speaker 1: reporter reporter in the very busy New York Federal court House,
Speaker 1: Bob van Voris, Bob, thank you for joining us. Um So,
Speaker 1: drug dealers with no criminal history don't normally get such
Speaker 1: long sentences. What was it about this case that was different? Well,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of factors that the sentencing judge,
Speaker 1: Katherine Forrest in Manhattan pointed to in sentencing him to life.
Speaker 1: Among other things, Ross William albrickt uh tried to arrange
Speaker 1: for the murders of five people. Uh. Now these were
Speaker 1: online people, people using aliases and uh in a sort
Speaker 1: of house of mirrors kind of effect. The police weren't
Speaker 1: able to figure out whether anybody actually was killed. They
Speaker 1: think that probably none of these murders were carried out.
Speaker 1: But in any case, Albrick paid sifty thousand dollars to
Speaker 1: put out contracts on people who were trying who were
Speaker 1: threatening to expose him and to expose other people on
Speaker 1: the On the site, Bob You wrote that the Circuit
Speaker 1: of Judges the panel showed empathy for his claim that
Speaker 1: the sentence is too harsh, but said it had to
Speaker 1: follow rules. And Gerald Lynch said, it's very possible that
Speaker 1: at some future point will come to regard these sees
Speaker 1: as tragic mistakes, which is the sentencing laws. But the
Speaker 1: judge had leeway. Don't trial judges have leeway with the
Speaker 1: sentencing rules. Some judges, like Judge Jed Raikoff, don't believe
Speaker 1: in maxing out all defendants under the federal sentencing guidelines.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right, and Judge Lynch on the Courts of
Speaker 1: Appeals has written about this in the past. He has
Speaker 1: been skeptical. He was the author of the hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty nine paid opinion, and he in the past has
Speaker 1: been skeptical of using the criminal law to address drug
Speaker 1: use and drug trafficking and suggested that maybe this is
Speaker 1: not the best approach, and certainly the extreme sentences handed
Speaker 1: down to people who use and sell drugs maybe is
Speaker 1: not wise, but that's the law right now. And the judge,
Speaker 1: the sentencing judge said Forrest under the law, had a
Speaker 1: great deal of discretion and uh imposed the maximum of
Speaker 1: life against against Albert, who's thirty three years old and
Speaker 1: faced a very very long time in prison. Bob prosecutors
Speaker 1: offered evidence of six overdose deaths linked to people linked
Speaker 1: to people who are using silk road and all objected
Speaker 1: to that at at trial. How if at all, did
Speaker 1: that factor into the appeals court decision that Judge Force
Speaker 1: took into account. But the appeals court found that even
Speaker 1: without that evidence, the the judge's sentence was based primarily
Speaker 1: on the traffic, the drug trafficking, and the conspiracy allegations
Speaker 1: and the fact that, as I said, he tried to
Speaker 1: have five people murdered. Uh, you know, even though those
Speaker 1: people uh ended up not being killed. Uh. He certainly
Speaker 1: tried to try to have that accomplished. Bob Albrick could
Speaker 1: not tell jurors at his trial that two former federal
Speaker 1: agents stole money from his online accounts while investigating Silk Road.
Speaker 1: Why is in government misconduct and corruption during an investigation,
Speaker 1: whether it affects it or not, something a jury should
Speaker 1: be allowed to consider. Well, this is another aspect of that,
Speaker 1: this sort of online house of mirrors. There were two
Speaker 1: agents who were involved in the investigation. They were down
Speaker 1: in Baltimore, a d e A agent and a secret
Speaker 1: service agent. They were online trying to uh fool Albrecht
Speaker 1: h Pirate Roberts uh into thinking that they were other people,
Speaker 1: using aliases of people who were already cooperating with the
Speaker 1: investigation UM as part of this, as part of the
Speaker 1: online anonymity of investigating this anonymous dread pirate Roberts, these
Speaker 1: two crooked agents use that as covered to steal hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of dollars in bitcoin UM. They were eventually
Speaker 1: caught and played guilty. The Court of Appeals ruled that
Speaker 1: this really had nothing to do with Albrick's guilt or innocence,
Speaker 1: and this was kind of a side even though they
Speaker 1: were very clearly, uh, you know, illegal acts by the
Speaker 1: by the investigators. Bob, We're gonna have to leave it there.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us on Bloomberg Law.
Speaker 1: Talking about Ross William Albrick, otherwise known as dread Pirate Roberts.
Speaker 1: He is the thirty three year old founder of the
Speaker 1: Silk Road Internet bazaar, which was used to buy drugs,
Speaker 1: and he is now looking at a life sentence in prison,
Speaker 1: which was upheld by federal appeals court