This Is What Life In Solitary Confinement Is Like for Ross Ulbricht

This is not Ulbricht’s cell in Alameda County’s Glen Dyer jail, via Flickr / CC. 

He’s on orders from a government-appointed attorney to keep quiet. But he’s speaking out anyway, damnit.

Sort of, not really.  

In his first interview since being detained on drug-trafficking conspiracy, computer-related fraud, and money laundering charges, the 29-year-old Ulbricht, perhaps better known as the Dread Pirate Roberts, opened up on a whole lot of nothing. That is, nothing specific to the DPR moniker and its relation to the Silk Road, the deep-web’s so-called eBay of Drugs that promptly shuttered after Ulbricht’s arrest, and to which Inmate ULW9818 is believed to have played a critical operating role. 

Which I suppose is a wise move on the part of anyone awaiting hearing in federal lockup, not least the guy who might’ve brokered $1.2 billion in sales in everything from narcotics and precursor chemicals to murder-for-hire services—and whose reported $80 million encrypted Bitcoin stash, to which only Ulbricht holds the key, the FBI is slobbering over. 

Ulbricht knows it. “I think they want me,” he told San Francisco Magazine, before offering a threadbare glimpse into his new life in the hole. 

He’s completely, totally out of the loop. Because of course he is. It should be a surprise to literally no one to hear that Ulbricht is, for now, being denied access to a computer as he awaits faces formal charges in New York.

This explains just how baffled he was to hear of that Forbes reporter tracking down his old housemates on 15th Avenue in San Francisco. And also how shocked he was to hear of the reams of returns one gets today after just a cursory search of his name on Google: as of just a few weeks ago, doing so only brought up “hits about his accomplishments in physics,” according to SFM.

He is choosing his words very, very carefully. Sure, that he’s rebuffing his attorney’s request to say nothing may only come back to haunt to Ulbricht in the end. Just don’t fault him for not proceeding with extreme caution with the press. 

Is he scared about the future? SFM asked. “Not excessively,” Ulbricht responded. Later, he was quoted back on that line (the reporter was forbidden from bringing in either an audio recorder or pen and paper), only a slight variation thereof: “Not necessarily.” Ulbricht snapped. “That’s not what I said.”

He is making “doodles”. As he is wont to do. Really, what else are you supposed to do when you spend 20-22 hours a day by yourself, and when on your own volition you refuse to chime in on cell-to-cell chatter among your fellow inmates? 

He will have a lot of time to work through that copy of Master & Commander that his folks sent him. You know, the 20-book epic about an old British salt’s high-seas life? The one that, in the opening pages no less, sees a pervy sailor hung for molesting the ship’s goat? That one. 

@thebanderson