Trump Pardons Former Penn State Student Who Founded Online Drug Ring

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he has pardoned Ross Ulbricht, a former Penn State graduate student who was serving a life sentence for running an underground website that sold drugs and other illegal goods.

Ulbricht, 40, received the life sentence in 2015 after he was convicted of founding and running Silk Road, a darknet site where drug dealers and others conducted more than $200 million in illegal trade using cryptocurrency bitcoin.

Trump tied his decision to pardon Ulbricht directly to the support he received from Libertarians during last year's presidential campaign. Libertarians have long called for Ulbricht's release, asserting his prosecution was an instance of government overreach. Trump had pledged to aid Ulbricht during a speech at last year's Libertarian National Convention.

"I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross," Trump wrote on his Truth Social social media website.

"The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me. He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!"

According to his biography on the Free Ross website, Ulbricht received a master's degree in materials science at Penn State. While there, he created and developed oxide thin films for technological use and published his findings on solar electricity and crystallography in peer-reviewed academic journals.

Ulbricht was known online as Dread Pirate Roberts, the mastermind behind Silk Road.

According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, "Silk Road emerged as the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet, serving as a sprawling black-market bazaar where unlawful goods and services, including illegal drugs of virtually all varieties, were bought and sold regularly by the site’s users.

"While in operation, Silk Road was used by thousands of drug dealers and other unlawful vendors to distribute hundreds of kilograms of illegal drugs and other unlawful goods and services to more than 100,000 buyers, and to launder hundreds of millions of dollars deriving from these unlawful transactions."

The narcotics distributed on Silk Road were linked to at least six overdose deaths, according to ICE.

Trump's decision to pardon Ulbricht came a day after he pardoned about 1,600 people convicted of offenses or facing charges related to the Jan. 6, 2001 U.S. Capitol riot.