My Son Built A Website And Got Two Life Sentences: The Lyn Ulbricht Interview
In this episode of The Babylon Bee podcast, editor-in-chief Kyle Mann and creative director Ethan Nicolle talk to Lyn Ulbricht, the mother of Ross Ulbricht who is currently serving two life sentences without the possibility of parole for creating Silk Road, which was essentially the libertarian Craigslist. Lyn Ulbricht heads up Free Ross, which is an organization that seeks criminal justice reform as well as Ross's freedom. They talk about Ross's case, excessive sentencing practices, and how Ross and Lyn have reconnected with Jesus during this whole series of events. Topics Discussed Who is Ross? What was he like before all this happened? Silk Road Ross's prosecution and sentencing Ross's testimony about Christ giving hope in the midst of hard circumstances Subscriber Portion Kyle and Ethan try to break Lyn's brain with the ten questions. Become a subscriber at babylonbee.com/plans
The nice thing is they're fans of the B, not really.
It's not me.
Yeah.
The B is its own.
It's an entity.
So you're a fan of the B?
Listeners.
See, but now we have video, possibly sometimes.
Watchers.
Yeah, I don't know if this will be on video.
So what do you call them?
Babylon B. Babylon B watch viewers and listeners.
I don't know.
It's just weird.
Whatever you are.
Listeners.
So we have a little different interview today with, well, you met her.
Lynn Ulbricht.
Lynn Ulbricht.
Who's the mother of Ross Ulbricht?
Yes.
Who we talk about it in the interview, but I want to give the quick.
Yeah.
What made you decided you wanted to do this one?
So this guy created Libertarian Craigslist, basically.
Okay.
Which is what you would expect.
What is Craigslist?
Craigslist.
It's like not libertarian.
What is it?
Well, it's the free market, right?
So I guess it is kind of just naturally libertarian, right?
Okay.
So he created Silk Road, which was, I guess, a free market site is what he called it.
It was, you could go buy and sell things, and it used cryptocurrency, which was really unique and innovative at the time.
And it was, you always hear that term like dark web.
Yeah, I still don't get with that.
I'm still not 100%.
Don't they use that with deep web?
The deep, dark.
Don't they use dark web with like Jordan Peterson?
Oh, the intellectual dark web.
Yeah, it was kind of a joking term.
I was joking.
It was created by involved with free market stuff.
No, it has nothing to do with the web.
It's just okay.
But basically, you could buy and sell things as long as it didn't hurt anybody else.
So it didn't really, it was kind of like a gray area legally because people were buying and selling drugs on there.
Gotcha.
And that's what the media pushed really hard was like when this, when Ross Ulbricht got caught and arrested and convicted of running the site.
And he was convicted for two life sentences plus 40 years.
Which raised a lot of eyebrows.
And so I met Lynn Ulbricht, who's his mother, at Free State Project, all those crazy libertarians that are moving to New Hampshire trying to turn it into a libertarian state.
And I say crazy libertarians lovingly, but she came up to me afterwards and talked for a bit.
And it was really interesting because she told me that Ross became a Christian in prison and he found new faith in God, read the Bible, got saved.
And I was just like, wow, you know.
And I was kind of like, Ross Ulbricht.
I'm like, really?
You're his mom?
And, you know, and it was kind of an amazing contact that I made there.
And I was kind of blown away when she was talking about his faith because that's not something you associate really with libertarianism a lot.
Yeah.
In fact, we should do an episode sometime where you break down how you link your Christianity with.
Sure.
Sure.
Absolutely kind of interesting.
Yeah.
What's the golden rule, man?
Yeah.
So anyway, although there are a lot of prominent Christian libertarians like Ron Paul and such, but I started noticing that.
But you still think of it as kind of an atheist scheme, right?
Yeah, it seems like a lot more Christians have swung libertarian.
For me, I started to consider myself more libertarian the last few years.
Well, the basic idea that libertarian Christians and conservative Christians get along because we're all like, just leave us alone.
And most conservatives are cool with that.
There's just a couple of issues that they break ways on.
But so I just wanted to hear her story.
So she's going to tell us a little bit about what Silk Road was, why he started it, how he ran it, how he got arrested, and then the crazy sentence.
And that's kind of what she started to do now is criminal justice reform because he got such an insane sentence.
Crazy sentence.
Yeah, I knew nothing about this before we talked.
And so I encourage you guys to give it a listen and kind of get informed about something where this guy's life and his family's life was just completely uprooted by this.
And not to say he didn't do anything wrong or that he shouldn't have got some kind of punishment, but for him to be put away for life on a nonviolent crime, and he was so young, he was in his mid-20s, you know.
The idea that he can't redeem himself in any way is pretty insane.
And that's definitely worth a listen.
All right, everybody, welcome to the Babylon B Interview Show.
I'm Kyle Mann.
I'm Ethan Nicole.
we are sitting here on the interwebs with Lynn Ulbricht who is the mother of Ross Ulbricht who you might know as the guy who founded Silk Road and was sentenced to two life sentences plus 40 years for his involvement in that website so we wanted to, I met Lynn when I was at a libertarian conference, the Free State Project up in New Hampshire and the Free State Project up in New Hampshire She's been exposed as a lot of people.
Well, I was undercover, you know, for so long.
We thought you were a Republican, Kyle.
And she told me a little bit about what Ross was going through in prison and how she's handling it and how he's handling it.
And it was just fascinating to me because I had remembered this story from the news years ago and it was just really interesting.
So we'd like to get her story and find out how Ross is doing now and maybe find out how people can get involved if they're interested in advocating for his freedom.
So, hi, Lynn, how you doing?
Hey, hi.
And I want to tell you, you make me laugh every day.
And I really appreciate that.
Probably need that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're hilarious.
Thank you.
Well, I only, because I wasn't very familiar with this story.
I tried to cram in some videos and read some stuff before this interview.
But for people who haven't heard the story at all, didn't even know what Silk Road was.
Let's just get like a nutshell version of events.
Sure.
And a lot of what you'll read is frankly fake news.
There's a lot of distortions and misstatements of fact.
I'm constantly dealing with.
But Snopes.
Yeah.
Well, my son, Ross.
Pardon me.
I was just saying Snopes will probably clear that up.
That's what they do.
It's in fact checking.
Yeah, right.
Sure.
So far, not so much.
Yeah.
So as you said, I'm Ross Ulbricht's mom.
He, when he was 26 years old, he's now 36.
26 years old, he became involved with the Ron Paul campaign.
He became very on fire for freedom and free markets and also saw the monetary freedom potential of Bitcoin, which was just very new and unknown at the time.
And he wanted to bring the word of free markets to people.
And he initially created a video game to do that.
And when he wasn't able to get it published, he turned to the internet and set up a platform.
People could buy and sell pretty much what they chose as, but it was as long as it didn't harm a third party.
So it was based on the non-aggression principle and voluntary interaction.
So, for example, there was no child pornography or anything related to pedophilia permitted because that hurts a child, or stolen property because that hurts the person who was stolen from weapons etc.
But and just this goes right along with libertarian philosophy if you choose to do drugs there, that's up to you.
And so people did exchange drugs.
It was mostly user amounts of marijuana, but there were hard drugs exchanged and it wasn't controlled.
It was a platform where this was permitted and, by the way, Ross has stated publicly how much he regrets it that it got out of hand.
He did not.
He thought it was going to be a place where people could be free and exchange goods and he didn't think it was going to become what it did.
And um, that's not to say it was okay, but just to say that his intentions were good and he was young.
You know, we all make mistakes when we're young, I think.
So in any case.
Um, he's matured quite a bit.
He's 10 years older.
He's been in prison now for uh, going on seven years and um so anyway his his, his convictions were all nonviolent.
There's no violence at all.
He's never been accused of violence at all.
He um, you know he's a first-time offender and um, to give someone double life plus 40 years for first-time offender, all nonviolent charges, is astonishing it's, it's a terrible.
Well, it's a violation of the eighth amendment cruel, prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment, but it sets a horrible precedent for excessive sentencing in this country.
Um, so i've been fighting for since he was arrested to get him out of there.
He doesn't belong in there.
Ross could be a real force for good and contribute a lot if he were not in prison and he wouldn't hurt a fly.
So that's essentially that and um yeah, that's the nutshell of what's been going on.
We do have a petition, if people are interested in are against a double life sentence plus 40 years without parole for a nonviolent first-time offender.
You can go to freeros.org slash petition and we have almost 300,000 signatures and, you know, help us get to half a million we need to get.
I'm trying to get the attention of President Trump to say this sentence needs to be corrected.
Please correct this sentence, continue Ross's sentence and and let him out.
So it was the deal with just to clear it.
To clear, because when you google this you do, there's these charges of murder for hire that were on this, they claim were on the site.
And then uh Dan, who does a lot of our research here, Said, it was really interesting.
Right at the end, the prosecution said, Oh, by the way, none of that happened.
Is that clear that this is the first time?
Well, Rosabella wasn't charged.
Yeah, it wasn't even any part of the charge, right?
Like in court.
Correct.
It wasn't part of his, what happened was the prosecution claimed that this, that Ross, well, they don't have any proof it was Ross.
This is all anonymous chats.
Gotcha.
There's tons of anecdotal and actually hard evidence that there were many people running the site at different times.
However, they did bring it up at bail, and that was part of what denied him bail.
But then when it came to actually indicting him, the charges weren't there.
And they were not brought to trial.
They were not ruled on by a jury, and he was not convicted of them.
However, in the meantime, the prosecution had talked to the media about it and claimed it.
There was another, there was a charge that was never prosecuted in Maryland.
And that brings up a whole issue of corrupt agents who are now in prison who were at the core of this investigation.
Based on their material, there was, and the victim, supposed victim of this murder for hire, has come out for Ross and saying he doesn't believe it was him.
But those charges, which weren't brought to trial or prosecuted, but they were in an indictment, those have been dismissed with prejudice.
So it's completely not there, but the media loves that stuff.
It's very exciting.
And it's become part of the narrative, but it's not there.
And actually, I've been told by defense attorneys and many others that this is kind of business as usual for prosecutors, where they will accuse people of heinous things and then not actually charge them.
But everybody thinks that's what they did.
But Ross, his life history and his just, and of course, the actual evidence, there is no evidence of this, but his life history, you know, there are 100 letters on our website from people who wrote the judge begging her to give him the minimum possible.
And she gave him the maximum possible, basically death in prison.
His whole life history belies any, any kind of violence that he's any kind of danger to anyone.
And so.
Yeah, so he wasn't like a bad boy that when you Google him, that comes up still.
That's crazy.
So he wasn't like a bad boy who was graffitiing stuff and throwing bricks through windows.
That's the thing.
He was so, that's why we were so shocked when this happened.
He's an idealist and he got all involved in this ideal.
But he had a business where he gave charitable donations from the gross of the business.
Ironically, one of those was a prison literacy program.
But he, you know, Ross is known for being compassionate and caring about people, especially underdogs.
He's got a big heart and cares.
So, yeah, no, he wasn't a problem child at all.
Gotcha.
Now, did you guys, did you know that he was involved in the Silk Road before the arrest and all of that?
Not at all.
Wow.
We found out from a Reuters reporter calling our house and telling me all this stuff.
And I'm like, what are you talking about?
This is insane.
And then I turn it on the TV and there's George Stephanopoulos going, they got their man.
And I'm like, wait a minute, we haven't even had a trial, right?
But talking about Ross and then media is driving by and the neighbors are freaking out and emails are pouring in and calls.
And that was the beginning of my new life.
Yeah, I can imagine.
And it was shocking.
Yeah.
Wow.
It's just blindsided.
I can't imagine.
Yeah.
Completely blindsided.
And Ross, when he finally got the call, he said, sorry to be a bother, mom.
And I'm like, well, that was the understatement of the year.
Sorry to inconvenience you.
Oh, man.
I had a question, but it just fluttered away in the middle of that.
So how did they figure out that it was him?
I remember reading some story when he got arrested of, well, he was sitting at a cafe or something in the library, right?
Yeah, something like that.
Yeah.
Well, that's where he was arrested.
It's still a question about, it gets pretty complicated when you ask from that question on because, and we have a thing on our website called the Untold Story that's based on all the tons of footnotes, like 400 footnotes going into the whole investigation and how there was an alternate perpetrator, how there's all kinds of things.
I personally think it was the NSA.
There's other stories about, you know, as far as finding out who is what and delving into it.
There, one government agent who was one of the main people in the investigation said that there was a meeting with an alternate perpetrator who offered to bring a name forward if they would back off of him.
And then right after that, Ross was arrested.
So Ross feels like he was set up, but he's not denying he was involved and created it.
But he is denying that he ran it the whole time, that he was, you know, the only dread pirate, Roberts, the name of the guy who was supposedly, you know, or people who were running it.
So it's kind of murky how thing, you know, the NSA will use their power and then make up a parallel construction of what happened.
So I don't really know where his actual name came up.
It seems like a site like that where so much is, I mean, it's a platform.
So lots of people are freely doing what they want.
And it seems like, because I don't know if it was anybody else convicted besides him, it seems that they could go through this website, find all the worst stuff, and just pin it all on him.
Well, yeah, he was pinned only for being supposedly the guy who's running it.
But the biggest drug seller, and by the way, Ross was not convicted or accused of selling drugs himself.
The biggest drug seller got 10 years.
And he's the same offense level as Ross.
Wow.
A guy who was running Silk Road 2, a copycat site, Blake Benthal, got no time.
And, you know, the 10 years goes down from there.
The corrupt agents got six years.
So Ross got to be their poster boy.
They even said, we want to make an example of you.
He's like the head on the spike of the medieval castle where, you know, people go, oh, that could happen to me kind of thing.
But that's not what our justice system is supposed to do.
Yeah.
And so he got, yeah, he took the fall for everybody, essentially.
So if that, if you like sat that judge down and said, tell me, like, you know, just in a few bullet points, why would you sentence this guy who, as far as I can tell, it's like he didn't like create a different website and then get warned that if you could do this again, like a young, young idealistic guy, he was trying something.
He messed up.
You know, he should have gotten in trouble in some way, but like, why are you giving, why are you senting him to a death sentence, basically?
Why is he going to die in prison?
And what would she answer?
Do you think?
Is it just do you even know?
If I had that judge in front of me, I would probably say a lot more than that.
I guess you don't want to be into her head.
What's interesting is that Ross will not, he has, and that's one of the things that has brought his faith into this is that he was tormented by hatred for all the, you know, her and the prosecutors and all the people who put him in this situation.
And he realized if he, if he kept being like that, he was going to be devoured by it.
And he has come around and with the help of God to forgive these people and be free.
And when I say, what was she thinking?
Who is this monster?
etc.
He's like, no, don't talk, don't, no, we're not going to get into that.
We've got to forgive and move on.
And he even submitted a tweet manually.
I mean, he doesn't have access to the internet, but he put up a statement that he wished her well, which is way beyond what I can do even now.
But, you know, I would like, you know, what was your motivation?
Why would you destroy?
She sat in front of him for three and a half weeks.
She saw, she read all the letters people wrote, and still she gave him the absolute most harsh sentence within the law, which is death in prison.
It's a walking death sentence.
And what makes a person like that?
I don't know.
I don't know what she would say.
Yeah, what is she doing?
She was known for her sentences.
He was her fifth life sentence that year.
It was only May.
She is no longer on the bench.
And many people have told me that she had no business being on the bench.
That she was, she's a hanging judge.
What makes a hanging judge?
I don't, you know, I don't know what makes a person like that.
It almost feels like someone came up and said, hey, you got to get this guy.
Yeah.
Like they definitely did that.
That is one of my suspicions.
Yeah, these are the kinds of things that make you turn into a conspiracy theorist, which I avoid like the plague, but like you start going, wow, there really is some like you just see something like this and you go, how does a man like this get two life sentences, let alone one?
Right.
Well, it was very political.
It was.
It was a very political case.
And, you know, well, you know, Chuck Schumer brought it to the public's attention, wanted to bring down Bitcoin.
Prie Barara, who was his right-hand guy, was the lead prosecutor, and the judge was recommended by him to the bench.
And Ross was brought back to New York from California, where he lived and was arrested.
So I don't know.
You know, yeah, that's fodder for a conspiracy.
You know, I think it was, there were political motivations personally, but I have no proof of it.
Yeah, well, I'm putting on my tinfoil hat.
Yeah.
It seems like there's something political happening there.
Unless there's something I'm totally missing about, you know, the danger, the perceived danger that he was causing.
It's so confusing.
Right.
Because it makes perfect sense.
Honestly, my theory, here's my theory.
Okay.
And a lot of people.
It was the Bitcoin.
It's not about drugs.
The biggest drug seller on the site got 10 years.
It's the Bitcoin.
And at the time, it was unknown.
It came bursting on the scene.
And Chuck Schumer stood on the courthouse steps calling for the takedown of Bitcoin.
Then a couple of months before Ross's arrest and the Silk Road was taken down, it was proven, I think it was two years ago with Snowden's papers that the NSA was urgently tracking Bitcoin users right then.
They're supposed to be tracking terrorists, right?
Apparently, they think Bitcoin users are more dangerous.
In any case, it was, you know, very much, I think, about the Bitcoin and a dangerous idea.
You know, so, yeah.
So a drug dealer, who cares?
You know, it's like, yeah, give him 10 years, but a dangerous idea, much more threatening.
Wow.
Wow, that's interesting.
So let's talk about a little bit about Ross.
So has his perspective changed at all on what he was doing with Silk Road?
Does he feel like he crossed any lines, you know, from a legal perspective or a moral perspective?
And then I'd like to get a little bit into his faith because you had mentioned that he found Christ in prison or maybe rediscovered a childhood faith in prison or something like that.
So I'd love to hear about that.
Sure.
Well, Ross, again, as I mentioned, he has publicly said that he regrets doing it, that he never meant for it to be what it became, that he is very remorseful and meant well.
But, you know, it's kind of like anybody's 36-year-old or whenever he wrote that 34-year-old self looking back on your 26-year-old self and going, you know, wow, what was I thinking?
But he, you know, he's matured.
Ross has been in prison for almost seven years.
And by the way, a model prisoner and giving and contributing to his fellow prisoners.
I mean, four letters on our site are from his fellow prisoners and 130 of them recently signed a letter asking for his commutation, saying he deserves it to be, you know, to, you know, 130 fellow prisoners because he's so generous with his time, his education.
He's taught classes, many, many classes.
Even guards will come up to me and go, what is he doing in here?
He doesn't need to be in there.
So, but yeah, I raising my kids, our kids, we were not Christian.
And so I was spiritual, you know, but I wasn't a Christian.
And then did become a Christian as later.
And out of that, my whole family did, and including Ross.
However, I would say that he would agree that being, you know, you can go in and out of that and get off track.
And he, being in prison, you know, is certainly, it's like it's a real boot camp in spiritual walk.
And he said, he wrote about it in this essay that I really think is a great essay called Five Keys to Inner Strength.
I learned in five years in prison.
And he talks about how being condemned to grow old and die, that's what he was, that's what he's looking at, just his whole life.
He said it's like staring into an abyss.
And when he got that sentence, he said his whole future, as he knew it, just disappeared and it was replaced by darkness and uncertainty.
And, you know, God has a way of bringing us to our knees.
And he said, you know, he saw that his faith became a matter of survival.
And he has a science background.
So I think that might be even more of a challenge because he was trained in physics and material science and it's all about proof.
But he said the day he was sentenced when that judge gave him that barbaric sentence and he had to go back to the prison.
He said he just saw two roads ahead of him.
He had to choose one of them.
And one of them was like a downward spiral into just the abyss, as I was saying.
And he said at the bottom were demons of despair and hatred and crushing sadness, you know, that he just felt if he went down that road, it would devour him.
And the other path, as he put it, soared upward, but he just couldn't find his way.
He couldn't find the steps.
And because there weren't any, there was no reason to hope that he could hold on to.
But then as time went on, he just kind of stumbled up that path and he had to put himself in protective custody at one point because he didn't, he refused to assault another inmate.
And that's kind of a thing in the prison.
Sometimes they force you to do that and you wouldn't do it.
So he was in protective custody.
And one of the only books he was allowed to have was the Bible.
And he's ended up reading the entire thing start to finish.
He'd already read parts of it.
But he said, you know, he kept, he really went on a spiritual path out of survival.
And he said, with all the evidence to the contrary, you know, you can't prove anything.
He just had faith that God would see him through whatever was coming.
And now, just realized he wasn't strong enough on his own to do it, to go back in there.
And he said, you know, look, a lot of people consider it irrational to believe in God, to believe without scientific proof, to have faith.
But Ross has said it's irrational to forsake hope and love and joy that faith brings because that gives you strength to fight and ultimately win.
And he said that for him, in his desperate situation, keeping faith alive is the difference between freedom and a slow cage death.
And so he, you know, we pray when we visit each other, when I visit him, we hold a fast to that God will use this for good because there's so much going wrong in our criminal justice system with so many people, not just Ross, that this can be something that God will use to help others as well.
And just having faith that this is in God's hands and that we can't, you know, we can just take it one day at a time and follow that.
So he has maintained an incredibly positive and just a great attitude because of this through all these years.
And so, yeah.
So he's now, you know, very firm in that.
That's incredible.
And forgive those other people.
That's such a tenet of Christianity.
Just you have to forgive them.
And that is so hard.
And he said he just, when his thoughts would drift to anger or, you know, all those feelings, he just became ruthless about, I'm not going to go there.
I'm not doing it because he realized the anger was hurting him.
It wasn't hurting them.
And that's really what forgiveness is about.
And so that's helped him a lot to not a lot of people in prison are consumed by bitterness and Ross isn't.
Yeah, that's amazing.
It's amazing, you know, when you get pushed into a corner like that and all you have left is your faith, you know, or a faith to discover like that, how that can sustain you.
So the libertarian movement, I mean, you know, How have they been sticking by Ross?
And have you gotten a lot of support from them through this?
Absolutely.
You know, they understand where he was coming from.
They understand.
And they believe in a free market.
So they, yeah, we have tremendous support from libertarians.
And there's an overlap with people involved with Bitcoin and blockchain because they understand that without his vision, they wouldn't, there wouldn't be much of a Bitcoin anything.
It's now digital currencies become a huge thing worldwide, but that was because of what Ross did.
And so there's an overlap with them and libertarians, but in general, yes, it's been incredibly supportive.
You met the people there at Liberty Forum.
They've been with us from the beginning.
They gave me my first chance to speak out about this and have been steadfast, absolutely steadfast in their support of the Free State Project and all those people.
They're great people.
Yeah.
It was a very diverse group.
I was kind of shocked when you came up and talked to me and told me that Ross had become a Christian because the kind of the image you get of libertarians is the fedora wearing atheist who hasn't showered in a few weeks.
And that's the stereo.
There are a lot of atheists.
There are.
But there's also Christians.
So it's diverse.
But there are a lot of atheists.
And we give each other space to be where we are.
But, you know, yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
But I did communicate all of this to them at Porkfest.
And also the other, to me, key thing that is amazing that Ross has and I work on is gratitude, even in the face of his trial in this, you know, really difficult, very challenging situation.
It's like, you know, the Bible tells us give thanks in everything.
And Ross says that the difference between misery and joy is gratitude.
And he talks about how it's available to everyone.
And so he will be thankful for clean water and food.
And I'm thankful he's no longer in a violent prison and, you know, that we're healthy.
And I mean, he's in prison right now with a case.
There's a case of the coronavirus that he's on lockdown, which means he can only leave his cell for two hours a day and make calls and take a shower.
And he says he's going to turn it into a spiritual retreat where he'll meditate and pray for 10 days.
That's what he's going to do with it.
He just takes the high road whenever things challenge him like this.
And we both, you know, it gives him and me really the faith and the strength to keep going.
And, you know, honestly, you know, focusing on your blessings, it does.
It just keeps you, well, the joy of the Lord is our strength, right?
And otherwise you can go into a real dark place with all of this and it'll, I think, just destroy you over time.
Yeah, I recently read Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankel, and he talks a lot about, as a quote that I'm reminded, he says, the way in which a man accepts his fate and all suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross gives him ample opportunity, even under the most difficult circumstances, to add a deeper meaning to his life.
And the book talks a lot about finding meaning in suffering.
It's not martyrdom.
It can be suffering you deserve.
But to another quote, he says, where is it here?
Everywhere man is confronted with fate.
Oh, no, it's this one.
Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.
When we put our misfortunes or our suffering into a bigger picture, into a story and put meaning into it.
And I feel like that's a huge message of the Christian faith is that your suffering or your bad bad luck or whatever it is is not the end of the story.
And if you can't go there, if you do live in this world where your suffering is the end and that's it, you do things go very dark very quickly.
And so I'm very happy for you that your son has that kind of vision of his own suffering and his own, you know, this plight.
Yes.
And that's one of his favorite books, by the way.
Absolutely.
And again, I, you know, God works all things for good, right?
So to those who love him and called according to his purpose.
And I do believe there's a purpose to this.
And that it's a bigger picture.
And I see it that way and Ross sees it that way.
And that we pray that what's happened to him will shine a light on many evils because there's a lot of evil going on in the criminal justice system, which I could go on about that for a whole other hour and how people are being treated in our country through that.
And we just hope that there's a greater plan here.
And we believe that.
I mean, I really do believe that.
And that really, as you say, when it becomes more meaningful, a bigger picture, then it's easier to hang in there day by day.
Yeah.
And believe that God has this in hand.
I, you know, I had a, I had an interesting thing happen way in the beginning of this when I was absolutely distraught.
And I was lying in bed one morning, just kind of waking up.
And I had this, and this has happened to me a couple of times in my whole life.
This still small voice that's not my mind.
It's not my ears.
It's some voice within saying he will be free.
And I, it was very clear.
And I'm like, Ross will be free.
And I, and I believe that.
And I'm, you know, but it's in God's timing.
And sometimes that takes longer than we like.
Yeah, it's interesting to me that whenever you meet someone who's into some issue like criminal justice reform or whatever, it's usually because something terrible happened in their lives and that got them involved in that activism.
So it's interesting that you've been able to turn Free Ross into a platform for advocating for other issues like criminal justice reform and the right to a fair trial.
Do you want to talk a little bit about some of those issues and how you advocate for those?
Yeah, I mean, when I first, this all happened and we were going into trial, I'm like, well, it's okay.
We'll get our day in court.
And there's a big statue of justice in the foyer.
I thought we're in America.
And what I have learned, up close and personal, is that our criminal justice system has been weaponized against people and that prosecutors run the courtroom and that is not fair.
And that is why 98% of people plea because they're threatened and they are told by prosecutors that if they go to trial, they'll lose, more than likely, only 1% win and they will get a worse penalty.
They will get a, so, you know, this is not how it's supposed to work, but that's what happens.
So people, I know people have told me they have pled to things they didn't do because they were threatening their families, et cetera.
And this is not right.
And so I've, you know, I've had my eyes open to all of this.
And how can I, with all the families I've met, the suffering I've seen, the children clinging to their fathers, you know, so happy to see them when they come in the prison and leaving shattered, crying, and people telling me how their family was going well.
And then since this arrest, that, you know, the kids are, everything's falling apart and the kids are acting out.
And look, I think, you know, obviously there's a place for incarceration, but it's so overused and the sentences are so long.
I mean, life sentences have quintupled since the 80s.
When I was growing up, you didn't, there were hardly ever any life sentences.
It's just there's no room for redemption or restitution in the federal system.
No parole, nothing.
This is against our values in our country.
And look, there are people who need, the public needs to be protected from that are dangerous and violent.
I get that.
But there's thousands of people, many of them drug offenders, who are not violent, who've been in there for decades, who their children are damaged.
Their families are shattered.
This is not necessary and it's not right.
And a lot of it, I think, is, I've been told that, you know, it's to further the career of a prosecutor or whatever reason.
And that's not about justice.
So now, I mean, how can I not speak out?
You know, and Ross and I both feel when he gets out and we both will be working towards criminal justice reform and talking about it because this should not be going on in America.
We should not be the biggest incarcerator in the world.
I'm curious, you know, because obviously this completely blindsided you out of nowhere.
You had no idea.
It sounds like what your son is even up to when this all happened.
We all as parents wonder how we'd handle something crazy happening like this in our life where our kid goes to prison or, you know, dies or something, something that you lose your child or just something beyond your, we all have our fantasy of what our life's going to be with our kid.
They're going to grow up.
They're going to have grandkids.
We're going to do this.
You just have your general idea.
So if you could go back in time to the woman you were before this all happened and you could sit down across from her and give her some advice for what's coming or just how to prepare for something like this.
And which by extension to any mother out there who you don't know, no mother knows what they're in for, but your motherly advice and advice as a woman to yourself before this all hit, what do you think you'd say?
Oh, man.
Well, first of all, don't ever think you know what's going to happen because life is completely unpredictable.
And of course, my faith was very strong.
And so when it did hit, I turned to God.
I, you know, prayed and turned it over and have been relying on guidance, divine guidance ever since.
And that's one of the things I would say take when these things happen.
And I've had many people say, my mother would never do this for me, which I think is sad.
Others say they would, but a lot of them say they wouldn't.
And for me, there was no choice.
I love Ross.
He's a good person.
He didn't, you know, I mean, if he had committed some heinous, violent thing, that might be a different story, but I'm sure it would.
But he's not.
And so I feel like I have no choice.
I'm trapped by mother love, but also the greater cause.
But I just, you know, stay strong day to day, day by day.
I can only, people go, how do you do this?
Well, it's one day at a time.
You know, just like in the Bible, manna came one day at a time.
You don't, you can't, I don't think about the future too much because I, first of all, as Ross says, we don't know what's going to happen.
He said, our future selves will know what to do.
And I use that a lot.
I'm like, oh, that's right.
My future self will know what to do when it has more information.
I don't have the information, right?
So I'd say one day at a time and do what you can and have faith, you know, and courage.
You have to, a lot of people have said to me, oh, you're so brave.
I wouldn't do that.
Well, first of all, it shouldn't take bravery because we should be able to speak out in our country without worrying about that.
But, you know, it's there's when you see injustice, it's almost like you've been given that duty to point it out.
And yeah, so I had it foisted on me.
But I think that, you know, you rise to the challenge and take one day at a time.
It's too big to take it any bigger than that.
Yeah, I'm constantly having to remind myself that God has given me grace for today.
Exactly.
Not for tomorrow until tomorrow comes.
Exactly.
It's too easy to try to work it all out and worry about all of it at once.
And that's probably especially hard when you're something that you have to be so patient.
You know, you maybe have to, you may have to be patient for many years.
That is tough.
I don't think about that.
I don't think about many years.
I just think about right now and what we can do now.
And that's, you know, it has been several years.
But yeah.
Yeah, right.
Just as you had no idea what your future held before this happened, you really have no idea what your future holds right now.
That's right.
And I am optimistic.
I have hope.
And as Ross said, where there's life, there's hope.
We're not asking, I'm not trying to move a physical mountain.
I'm just, it's just people and paperwork.
People and paperwork can be, you know, things can happen.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, I mean, let's talk about that a little bit.
It must have been disappointing.
I know you've gone through the appeals process.
I believe it went up to the Supreme Court.
It did.
And that was rejected or denied.
So what's the current strategy?
You indicated trying to get a pardon.
Is that like the only avenue left?
Is that what you guys are pushing for right now?
Well, yeah, we've run out of direct appeals.
And by the way, by the time it gets to the Supreme Court, it's not really about specifics in the case.
It's about constitutional issues that impact lots of people.
It's very unfortunate that they didn't take it.
And by the way, one of the, by the grace of God, and this is a miracle, we got one of the top lawyers in the country to take the case at an extreme discount because he felt like it was an important case.
And I mean, us getting that lawyer to take it was, it was a miracle, really was.
But that's just one of many that have happened and doors that have been opened.
But in any case, yeah, the two constitutional questions were, should the government be able to delve into all of our internet activity and use it how they like in secret without a warrant or probable cause?
And that was really the question before the court.
And they just dismissed it, kicked the can down the road.
And the other question was, and this concerns the murder for hire, the judge didn't, Ross was never charged with it, but the judge referred to it in her sentence to justify her draconian sentence, even though it was never proven or ruled on by a jury.
This is a direct violation of the Sixth Amendment, which gives a defendant or the accused, guarantees the accused of a trial by jury of their peers, not one judge deciding that something a prosecutor said with no proof is true.
And that apparently has been going on for a long, long time to a lot of people.
And they didn't take that one either, unfortunately, because it's really weakening our Sixth Amendment protections.
So now there's two things.
There's a civil case called a 2255 that is rarely, rarely won that we're going down the road of that.
And the other in the same district where he was sentenced and tried.
But the other is a commutation from the president.
We're not a pardon, we're not asking for a pardon.
And a pardon is you're completely exonerated.
You didn't do anything wrong.
No, Ross isn't asking for a pardon.
He admits he did something wrong.
He's asking for the sentence to be corrected, that this sentence should be commuted to time served.
And that, you know, to give him a second chance, to give him a chance to contribute to society.
And he's got a lot to contribute.
He's very smart.
And, you know, have a life.
And so that's what we're asking.
And the sentence, again, sets a terrible precedent for excessive sentencing, which is a problem in our country.
So just by that alone, I think it's a valid commutation.
So that's really what we're pushing for the most, that we hope that the president, he's already commuted and pardoned people.
And we're hoping that he'll be open to considering Ross's case and seeing the injustice and seeing that a second chance is warranted.
And so that's why we have a petition to him.
It's on our website, freeross.org, which also has tons of information, but it has a big red banner you can click or just freeross.org slash petition.
And as I said, we have over a quarter of a million.
We're headed towards 300,000 signatures.
So it's a lot of people who seek justice here.
And we're hoping that that can get some attention.
And anybody who has political connections that could help me to get the president's attention or could help us in this or advise, please let me know.
I'm very reachable on freeros.org.
There's a footer on every page that you can click and email comes straight to me.
Hoping to be able to present our arguments that this sentence is way, way wrong, that it's really should not be happening in the United States.
Have you guys been approached to do any kind of documentary, anything like that?
Yeah, well, there is a documentary called Deep Web that was done quite a while ago, and it's an interesting one because Alex Winter, who's the director, interviewed people who were high-level administrators who said there were lots of DPRs.
So right there, you know, but that goes up to the trial, and it's good.
It's fair, at least.
There's been others that I've declined to be involved with because I've actually had a very bad experience with the media and being fair and truthful.
So, and some of them distort it.
You know, I don't even believe anything pretty much that I read in the media anymore.
Yeah, I know.
It's so sad, but it's it, I, you know, it's so I try.
I don't know, it's a hard decision because you want to have the attention, but then you have no guarantee that it'll be accurate or not distorted.
So, tend to err on the side of avoiding it.
So, there's terrible ones out there that are full of statements about him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, you're talking to the Babylon beat, which is a reliable Alex Winter.
That's Bill and Ted, right?
That's that's uh Bill and Ted.
And Keanu Reeves narrates it.
Oh, wow.
Um, he doesn't do it in the Ted voice, hopefully.
Huh?
He doesn't do it in the Ted voice, though, the narration.
No, he does it more in the neo, you know, the matrix.
I guess they're friends.
Yeah, it's good.
You should check it out.
It only goes to the trial, but and Alex has met Ross and he's a total supporter of Ross getting out.
He's been great.
Yeah.
Nice.
Well, we actually have a lot of people who's publicly spoken out.
We have a widespread support page on our website with many, many prominent and eminent people saying this is wrong.
This isn't right.
And maybe I can get a statement from you, Kyle.
There you go.
You're eminent.
Yeah, absolutely.
Hey.
Not Ethan.
Ethan's feeling left out here.
Second fiddle.
Ethan's written more books than I have.
Oh, both of you.
You're going to name drop any names?
Widespread support?
Yeah, we want to know more.
Sure.
We have a button for name drops.
Cool.
I should pull it up right now on our site.
But when you talked about, you know, libertarians, Gary Johnson, who ran for president, he's spoken out.
Let's see who else.
Name drop.
There you go.
There it is.
Let me go in here.
John Stossel.
Name drop.
Good.
Shall I keep going?
The head of Law Enforcement Action Partnership, which represents Neil Franklin, who represents, you know, lots of police and prosecutors.
He spoke out.
The Libertarian Party itself officially resolved to and asked President Trump to commute the sentence.
Noam Chomsky.
Name drop.
There's a big one.
Justice.
Jesse Ventura.
Name drop.
It's the most use out of the button we've ever gotten.
Yes, I mean, I can keep going.
There's a lot of them.
Lynn might be the best connected person we've talked to.
Yeah.
Wow.
So do you know if Trump is aware of this?
I believe he is aware of it.
I don't know how much he, I mean, he's been terrible.
I know that.
I'm not sure if he's really dug into it.
But, you know, he's a little distracted right now.
And right before that, it was impeachment.
And right before that, I mean, I'm like, oh my God, I get this guy's attention.
But we're still working on it.
It does seem like a thing that, you know, it's a thing that happened.
Technology is constantly changing and people freak out when things change.
It seems like this sentence was in some way like a response to that, like freaking out about Bitcoin and all this stuff.
And as things evolve, right now, Bitcoin's, you know, really mainstream.
Right.
It seems like at some point we're going to go, you know, kind of like right now, marijuana is being legalized all over the place.
So now there's something going back and all these marijuana people that are in jail are getting the marijuana.
They're marijuana people.
They're getting let out.
Yeah, they're going, all right, or maybe we were a little harsh, you guys.
So I guess we can hope that maybe it's going to be something like that.
They're going to be like, all right, I think that's very astute because, and actually, it was brought out by one of the Amicus briefs in the Supreme Court is that, you know, the dark web is no longer, it's, you know, it was like this evil thing, Bitcoin, the evil thing.
They, of course, the prosecutors completely controlled the narrative.
So Ross's libertarian beliefs were not allowed to be mentioned at trial.
The fact that they barely mentioned marijuana, it was all, you know, other drugs.
They, you know, a lot of things were distorted.
They wouldn't allow them to know there were alternate perpetrators, on and on.
But, oh, and but I think you're right.
You know, marijuana now is legal.
I mean, I was driving by a billboard and it said, marijuana, deliver to your door.
And I'm like, well, isn't that what Silk Rove was doing?
I mean, now it's a billboard on a highway.
Yeah.
My son's sitting in a cage.
And so you're right.
Times are changing.
And so that is hopeful.
It's just that it changes slowly and Ross's life is ticking away.
So I'm, you know, always pushing.
Yeah.
Were you a libertarian before this all happened or did you get converted?
Well, you know, they have this test to see if you're a libertarian.
And I came out libertarian.
So I guess I was.
I didn't know it.
You know, and my husband and I have been entrepreneurs and just kind of like leave us alone people, you know?
So yeah, I would say I was certainly with a small L.
I wasn't a member of the party, but you know.
Have any of your founding fathers?
I'm in line with them.
Yeah.
So like since this has happened, you think any of your convictions politically have either strengthened or shifted or stuff you hadn't thought about before?
I mean, obviously the criminal justice system, probably a big one.
Yeah, it's a big one.
Trusting the government in general is a big one.
Like I say, I went in there just all thinking, well, this is America.
Now I feel like a lot of our values have been hijacked by the government in various ways.
I think we really need to, I think we're at a tipping point in history and it's very concerning.
I feel like, you know, we are either going to go through more into more of a surveillance state, which appears to be growing rapidly with this coronavirus and government control or towards innovation and better lives.
And it's kind of like we're at a crossroads and I'm afraid we're tipping over into government control.
And so it's this whole thing has kind of given me this bigger picture.
And actually, frankly, I see the whole thing as a battle of good and evil on a higher level even.
And, you know, I, yeah.
So I'm much more, much more aware of all of that than I was before.
Well, if the NSA is listening in, we just want to say, we just want to distance ourselves from everything that Lynn just said about the government because we love the government.
Yeah, well, they are.
No doubt.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, Lynn, thanks for joining us.
This has been awesome.
Thanks so much.
If so, if people want to get involved, what's the best thing they can do?
Sign the petition at freeross.org?
Yeah, freeros.org.
If you have ideas, just contact me.
As I said, political connections, of course, we always need money.
So, you know, because fighting the government is extremely expensive.
We still have several lawyers.
And so that's another way.
If you've made money from Bitcoin, consider that you probably wouldn't have if it weren't for Ross.
Help us out.
Many people have, to be very much so.
We're very grateful.
So, yeah, those things, but very much open to ideas.
And yeah, and thank you so much.
It's been really a pleasure talking to you.
And I don't always get to talk about things like this.
And yeah, I forgot to mention there's a take action page on our website.
And there's other things you can do to help, such as FYI.
There's an action page.
Okay.
And I hope you come to Porkfest, Kyle.
Yeah, you guys have all been trying to get me to go.
They have a big, crazy, hedonistic, libertarian festival out in the woods every summer.
They've been trying to get me to go.
I'm not sure how he, well, I guess you'd be called hedonistic.
I don't participate.
I'm just kidding.
They all do what they do and they don't condemn each other for it.
Yeah, that's true.
Coming up next for Babylon Bee subscribers.
These are hard.
Wait, you just use the Lord's name in vain?
And talking about the Bible?
You get to hang out with three people, living or dead, who are these three people.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, you can't have Jesus.
Sorry, Jesus.
Everybody says Jesus.
Everybody says Jesus.
Jesus is always there.
Flowerbed.
Flowerbed.
Guys, this is hard.
I hate this kind of stuff.
It broke my brain, and you know, that's not very nice.
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