Silk Road Darknet Site Creator Ross Williams Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison Without Parole

The underground area of the Internet known as Silk Road was intended to be a market on the Darknet. Users of Silk Road were able to navigate through its system undetected using the program Tor––a service that allows anyone to move freely through the net without being traced. Since Silk Road's demise in 2013, the spotlight was placed on its creator Ross Williams Ulbricht. According to authorities, Ulbricht was responsible for the drug and weapons trafficking that went down on his site. They also accused him of being responsible for any murder-for-hire sales that were accessed through Silk Road. Since then, Ulbricht has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Judge Katherine Forrest gave Ulbricht the most severe sentence he could possibly have gotten. The Silk Road creator could have gotten a minimum of 20 years – a sentence many thought he would receive.

"In the world you created over time, democracy didn't exist. You were captain of the ship, the Dread Pirate Roberts," Judge Forrest told Ulbricht. "Silk Road's birth and presence asserted that its ... creator was better than the laws of this country. This is deeply troubling, terribly misguided, and very dangerous."

Not only does Ulbricht have to serve a life sentence he also has to pay up more than $183 million in restitution. According to the judge, this is the amount of money the illegal drugs and counterfeit ID's made on the service. Any revenue seized from Ulbricht's laptop will go to that debt.

Ulbricht's defense team will be looking for an appeal in the case. His defense team says two Secret Service and DEA agents in the investigation stole millions of dollars of bitcoins from the site. One of those agents is even accused of blackmailing Ulbricht and selling him law enforcement information.