Silk Road Mastermind Sentenced to Life in Prison

New York: The US mastermind behind criminal website Silk Road, which sold $200 million worth of drugs to customers worldwide, was sentenced to life in prison by a federal judge in New York Friday.

Judge Katherine Forrest imposed two life sentences against Ross Ulbricht, 31, who had a privileged upbringing and graduate degree, for narcotics distribution and criminal enterprise.

Dressed in dark prison scrubs, Ulbricht expressed no visible emotion as he stood to hear his fate. In the public gallery, his mother put her head in her hands as the double life sentence was read out.

Forrest also imposed maximum terms on Ulbricht for hacking, trafficking in false documents and money laundering convictions -- five, 15 and 20 years respectively, to be served concurrently.

Forrest told Ulbricht that he will never be eligible for parole.

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"You should serve your life in prison," she told him during a three-hour hearing at a federal court in Manhattan, saying she had found it very difficult to reach a decision.

"What you did in Silk Road was terribly destructive to our social fabric," said the judge, calling him a criminal whose graduate school education made his actions less explicable than a common drug dealer.

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Forrest said the court also sought the forfeiture of more than $183.9 million in Silk Road drugs sales, but dismissed two other counts on which Ulbricht was convicted by a jury in February after a four-week trial.