MCLEAN, VA., October 20, 2022 – A large milestone was reached this past weekend at LibertyCon International when the petition for clemency for Ross Ulbricht reached and surpassed half a million signatures.
Ross Ulbricht is serving two life sentences plus 40 years without the possibility of parole for founding and operating a free market e-commerce platform called Silk Road.
The site was then used by people for things that went outside of the law, which also happens today with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and every other platform. Ulbricht himself never directly harmed anyone or participated in any crimes, yet his sentence was wildly disproportionate to the severity of the crimes for which he was convicted in order to make an example out of him.
It also relied on testimony and evidence from federal agents who are now serving time in prison for corruption charges. Ulbricht is now serving his tenth year in prison.
2020 Libertarian candidate for Vice President Spike Cohen, who was a speaker at the Students For Liberty event, stated “Ross Ulbricht is a peaceful, nonviolent man who has never harmed anyone and whose only “crime” was to create a website that some used to sell drugs that shouldn’t be illegal in the first place.”
Lyn Ulbricht spoke about her son Ross on the main stage at LibertyCon in front of hundreds of students who came from all six inhabited continents to hear her talk about her struggle to get her son clemency.
Within a day of her speech and call for signatures to the students in attendance and watching the stream around the world, her petition surpassed its goal: “I arrived at Libertycon with Ross’s clemency petition 2,000 signatures short of half a million. I called on attendees to help us get there and they really stepped up! We passed the half million milestone! Thank you Students for Liberty for helping make this happen. #FreeRoss!”
Lyn Ulbricht’s discussion at LibertyCon with Jess Mears can be seen in full here.
Brian S. Lambrecht
Students For Liberty
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708-420-8324