Kingpin Goes Down

Silk Road drug kingpin and UT Dallas alum faces life in prison after guilty verdict

Ross Ulbricht, founder of the online narcotics empire Silk Road and University of Texas at Dallas alum, was found guilty on seven charges, including drug and money-laundering conspiracies and a continuing criminal enterprise statute normally reserved for mob and drug cartel leaders. It took a Manhattan jury only a few hours to reach its verdict.

The Austin native is facing a minimum of 30 years in prison and could receive a life sentence after the jury convicted him of being the Dread Pirate Roberts, the mastermind of Silk Road, a now-defunct site that allowed users to buy and sell drugs ranging from weed to heroin and everything in between. Ulbricht was arrested in October 2013 at a San Francisco library.

The continuing criminal enterprise charge is often referred to as “The Kingpin Statute” and has been used again Chicago gangster Larry Hoover and Oakland-based ’80s drug lord Felix “The Cat” Mitchell. It carries a minimum 20-year sentence and a maximum of life imprisonment.

Ulbricht’s lead attorney, Joshua Dratel, argued that although Ulbricht was the creator of the Silk Road under the pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts, he had long passed the site on to others who were now attempting to frame him.

According to Wired, the state’s evidence against the 30-year-old was overwhelming. For one, he was arrested while on his laptop, logged in to the site’s “mastermind” account. In addition, his laptop contained a journal, logbook and private chat logs that all indicated he was running Silk Road, and a former FBI agent had traced $13.4 million in Bitcoins from the site’s Iceland- and Pennsylvania-based servers to the Bitcoin wallet on Ulbricht’s laptop.

Dratel told reporters outside the courthouse that he plans to appeal the verdict. “What you saw in terms of length of deliberations is demonstrative of [what happens] when the defense is precluded and limited and circumscribed in the way that it was,” he said.

unspecified

Weed News

Texas AG Ken Paxton sues Dallas over decriminalization of marijuana

Photo courtesy of US Fish & Wildlife

undefined

The City of Dallas has been sued by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for its efforts to decriminalize marijuana.

According to a release, Paxton has sued the city for adopting a city charter amendment that would decriminalize marijuana-related offenses and prohibit police from enforcing Texas law.

That amendment was Proposition R, or Dallas Freedom Act, which decriminalizes possession of four ounces of marijuana or less. Voters passed the amendment in the November 5 election, with 67 percent voting in favor.

The lawsuit, filed against the Dallas City Council, alleges that Proposition R is unconstitutional and violates Texas drug laws criminalizing any amount of marijuana.

Paxton says that cities can't "pick and choose which state laws to follow." He's proposing a permanent injunction to stop Proposition R from going into effect.

"The City of Dallas has no authority to override Texas drug laws or prohibit the police from enforcing them," says Paxton in a statement. "This is a backdoor attempt to violate the Texas Constitution, and any city that tries to constrain police in this fashion will be met swiftly with a lawsuit by my office.”

Before the recent election, possession of two to four ounces of marijuana could result in a punishment of 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine.

Ground Game Texas, the activist nonprofit that has also helped get marijuana decriminalization on the ballot in elections across Texas, first got the issue on the ballot in July with the necessary 50,000 signatures.

Dallas is not the only city to be sued; Paxton also filed lawsuits against five other cities in Austin, Denton, Elgin, Killeen, and San Marcos in January for their ballots and policies decriminalizing marijuana.

Both Austin and San Marcos had a judge overturn their cases, according to a FOX 4 report.

marijuana