The following contains the analysis and opinions of the author and no one else.

Say what you will about the United States’ 47th President, Donald Trump, but his pardon of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, aka, the “Dread Pirate Roberts,” was unlike anything his rivals for the office he currently occupies would have done.

Ulbricht, who was 11 years into a life sentence with no parole in a harsh federal pen, did not receive and would never have received a pardon from President Joe Biden or Biden’s milk-toast VP and wannabe successor, Kamala Harris.

Regarded as a romantic anti-hero by libertarians and bitcoin bros for creating a popular dark-web market place where illicit drugs (and other underground goods and services) were traded online, Ulbricht was (and largely is) anathema to the reigning political class and the MSM, not to mention federal prosecutors and law enforcement.

In May of last year, while running for president, Trump appeared before the Libertarian National Convention in Washington, DC, promising to commute Ulbricht’s sentence on day one of his presidency, if elected.

Skeptical Libertarians booed his speech, and many Ulbricht supporters were concerned that the booing alone would scotch any deal.

But in a recent documentary by the libertarian magazine Reason.com, Libertarian National Committee Chair Angela McCardle described a meeting with candidate Trump in which she presented her “ask” on the part of libertarians, and the ask was “Free Ross.”

Trump agreed. “I love freeing people. I’ll do that,” he told her.

According to the  Reason documentary, after the libertarians’ nominating convention was over, “McCardle vowed to only back its own candidate, Chase Oliver, in non-competitive states, favoring the Democrats.”

Still, as the first day of Trump’s presidency bled into the second day, libertarians were expressing disappointment that Trump had yet to act on Ulbricht, whom they regarded as “one of their own.”

But in the wake of commuting or pardoning the sentences of those involved in the January 6, 2020 riots on Capitol Hill, Trump announced via Truth Social that he had pardoned Ulbricht and informed Ulbricht’s mom of same.

Trump wrote:

“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. 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!”

The official @freeRoss X account posted a photo of Ulbrict, in an unidentified parking lot, wearing prison greys and a smile on his face, with the message, “FREEDOM!!!!” emblazoned above.

The Plight of the Backpage 3

Although there were many similarities in the ways the feds pursued the Ulbricht prosecution and the prosecution of those associated with Backpage.com, the websites themselves were very different. Backpage was little more than a knockoff of the classified ad website, Craigslist.org.

Backpage hosted ads placed by third-parties for a variety of lawful goods and services, including legal adult services such as massage, dating and escorting. Offers of illicit transactions were forbidden by Backpage’s terms of service, unlike Silk Road, which was awash in facially unlawful goods and services, such as heroin and cocaine.

For the most part, the only thing that could be purchased directly on Backpage was ad space. Also, the site’s owners cooperated extensively with law enforcement, answering subpoenas within 24 hours or even less in exigent circumstances. With Backpage’s assistance, police were able to track down and rescue endangered women and minors and prosecute their predators.

Unlike Silk Road, which operated on the dark web and whose operators and owners were anonymous, Backpage’s owners and operators were publicly known. For many years, Backpage was part of a 17-newspaper chain, Village Voice Media, which was co-owned by veteran newspapermen Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, who vigorously defended the site’s First Amendment right to publish.

Indeed, despite being vilified by disingenuous politicians and so-called anti-trafficking activists, Backpage won a string of legal victories in federal and state courts, which consistently ruled that Backpage was protected both by federal law and the First Amendment.

Nevertheless, Backpage was seized and destroyed by the federal government in 2018, with Lacey, Larkin and four others arrested and hit with a 100 count indictment on charges related to conspiracy, money laundering and violations of the U.S. Travel Act.

Prosecutors seized nearly all of the defendants’ assets, including funds set aside to pay legal fees. The first trial ended in a mistrial in 2021 following three days of testimony after prosecutors poisoned the jury by mentioning or eliciting testimony concerning sex trafficking and child sex trafficking, though the defendants faced no such charges.

Driven to despair by a vicious and seemingly unending prosecution, Larkin took his own life prior the start of the second trial in 2023.

Of the remaining defendants, two former Backpage employees were ultimately found not guilty of all charges. Two company execs, Scott Spear and Jed Brunst, both in their 70s, were found guilty on multiple charges and sentenced to ten years apiece — after the court rejected their First Amendment defense and precluded all evidence of prior court rulings that Backpage’s publication of adult ads was Constitutionally-shielded.

Lacey, now 76, was found guilty on one count of international concealment money laundering, though the conviction did not comport with the facts of the case.

He was found not guilty on one other money laundering count, while the jury was hung on 84 counts, 50 of which the judge later tossed. The government has signaled its intent to retry him on the 34 outstanding counts.

Lacey was sentenced to five years in prison, which he began serving on September 11. In November, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ordered Lacey released on bond pending the outcome of his appeal. Brunst and Spear were not so fortunate and remain behind bars.

Libertarians, particularly those who write for and read Reason.com, have long rallied to the defense of Backpage and decried the injustice done to it and its former owners and operators.

But it remains an open question of whether the new Trump administration’s DOJ will treat Lacey and the others differently than in the past.

Hope springs eternal.

Please also read:
“Bonafides from the Bunker,” Lacey’s vignettes of prison life
and
Please watch, “How the Feds destroyed Backpage.com and its founders,” a reason documentary.