It was just after midnight when a phone call from an unknown number woke Dorine Núñez Ávila.
The California mother of two was in bed after dropping her 16-year-old son, Alejandro, off at a friend’s house for a sleepover. When Núñez Ávila answered the phone early that September morning in 2012, the caller identified herself as Cheri Cook, whose grandson, Bradley, was hosting the get-together. She said Alejandro had gone into cardiac arrest.
Núñez Ávila rushed to Cook’s house, where she found her son unresponsive in the garage. Paramedics transported the teenager to Marshall Hospital in Placerville, California, where he was pronounced dead. Alejandro, just a few weeks into his sophomore year of high school, had overdosed.
Alejandro is one of at least six people to have died after overdosing on drugs purchased on Silk Road, a now-defunct online marketplace where users could buy and sell illegal drugs such as heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine, according to court documents.
President Donald Trump pardoned the site’s founder, Ross Ulbricht, this month. Ulbricht had been sentenced to life in prison in 2015 after being convicted on seven counts, including conspiracy and money laundering, related to the sprawling empire he created.
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In an interview with The Washington Post, Núñez Ávila slammed Trump’s pardon as hypocritical.
“He talks about immigrants coming here to the States, bringing drugs to the U.S., but yet he pardons this individual that was sentenced for life in prison back in 2015,” Núñez Ávila said. “I really don’t understand.”
“I strongly feel that individuals who are involved in distributing illegal drugs should be in prison forever,” she added. “These people should not be out here. They’re dangerous.”
The pardon was part of a May campaign promise Trump made to libertarian voters, who had long sought Ulbricht’s release. In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said signing the pardon was his “pleasure” and called Ulbricht’s life sentence “ridiculous.”
Núñez Ávila said when she first heard the news of Ulbricht’s pardon, she asked herself what was being done for those affected by Silk Road, saying Ulbricht “broke up a lot of families.”
“Our family is broken. Our life has not been the same since Alejandro left 12, 13 years ago, and it will never be the same,” she said.
A star in his own right, Alejandro had spent the past year playing basketball in Pollock Pines, California, for the Amateur Athletic Union. Whenever Alejandro made a layup, Núñez Ávila said, fans used to tell her that it looked as if he was flying.
Alejandro, who dreamed of attending college near the beach, died after overdosing on 25I-NBOMe, an LSD-like drug commonly referred to as “Smiles” or “N-bomb.”
According to court documents, Elijah Lee Richter of Camino, California, imported the drug from Europe to his home in El Dorado County after ordering from the site. Richter then sold some of the tabs to Jesse Roberts, who, in turn, sold the drug to Alejandro and his friends.
Alejandro took four hits of 25I-NBOMe that summer night, according to court documents. After ingesting the tabs, Alejandro became incoherent and aggressive. His friends tried to calm him down and were able to get him to sit in a chair. However, shortly afterward, Alejandro stiffened, fell face-first out of the chair and began having violent seizures, at which point his friends went to call for help.
Thursday would have been his 29th birthday.
“I don’t like to think about it, but you kind of wonder what he would be doing right now, what kind of life he would have right now,” Núñez Ávila said. “Would he have children? Would he be married? Where would he be working?”
Bryan Barry, 25, of Boston and Jordan Mettee, 27, of Bellevue, Washington, also died after taking drugs purchased on Silk Road, according to court documents.
Bryan was found dead in his Boston apartment in October 2013, just days after his 25th birthday. According to court documents, officers found a belt in his left hand and a small plastic bag of brown heroin and a syringe next to him. Law enforcement analyzed Bryan’s laptop and discovered that he had conducted several searches, including how to find heroin in Boston, the “fastest way to get a bitcoin” and “can you trust seller reviews on silk road.”
At Ulbricht’s May 2015 sentencing hearing, Bryan’s father, Richard, asked U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest, who was overseeing the New York case, to impose the harshest sentence possible.
“While it is true we are all born with free will that allows us to make our own choices in life, drugs that are highly addictive — like heroin — diminish or eliminate our ability to make good choices,” Richard said. “Ross Ulbricht’s Silk Road scheme removed all the natural ‘governors’ that would otherwise prevent people like Bryan from gaining access to a drug like heroin.”
Transactions on Silk Road were made using bitcoin, a digital currency that helped shield users’ identity. Ulbricht was considered a pioneer in the use of cryptocurrency.
Some cryptocurrency enthusiasts have lionized Ulbricht as a champion of a free market for everything, absolving him of the trades on his site because he profited only passively through fees instead of selling directly.
Ulbricht’s life sentence, and the revelation that two law enforcement officers tried to steal some of his riches while investigating Silk Road, reinforced his fans’ view that he was unfairly targeted.
Rank-and-file crypto holders — many of whom got involved in electronic currency after Ulbricht’s trial — cheered his release on social media, both as a redemption for a maligned hero and as a general positive sign for crypto’s future under Trump. Any retreat from regulation would make their holdings worth more, at least in the short term.
While Trump’s crypto czar, David Sacks, retweeted a positive take on the pardon, he did not voice anything directly.
In fact, few well-known crypto backers spoke publicly.
Some naturally did not want to be associated with the depths of the criminality. Others fretted that the pardon, along with a promised new approach at the Securities and Exchange Commission and Trump’s personal involvement in memecoins, which have no intrinsic value, could suggest a future with no rules at all.
That could hurt companies that have been following the law, and it could spiral into widespread criminality and provoke some retrenchment.
Paul Grewal, chief legal officer at Coinbase, was among those who tried to thread the needle by stressing that Trump had promised to free Ulbricht, a move that came as the crypto-friendly Libertarian Party asked Trump to speak at its convention.
“It tells you how deeply he is committed to righting all kinds of wrongs across crypto,” Grewal told The Post. “I think this commitment extends to creating clear rules for the industry, which we’ve already seen the new SEC say they will do.”
FBI agents and prosecutors who worked on the case declined to comment, with one citing the unpredictable political environment.
But the pardon has sparked concern and uncertainty within the law enforcement community.
“Ulbricht controlled one of the largest and most prolific illicit darkweb marketplaces, where heroin, cocaine and various other drugs and illegal services were offered,” former Department of Homeland Security investigator Cristopher Musto wrote on LinkedIn, adding that he generally supported Trump. “Law enforcement agencies across the United States did dozens of these marketplace cases, do they all get thrown out?”
The California mother of two was in bed after dropping her 16-year-old son, Alejandro, off at a friend’s house for a sleepover. When Núñez Ávila answered the phone early that September morning in 2012, the caller identified herself as Cheri Cook, whose grandson, Bradley, was hosting the get-together. She said Alejandro had gone into cardiac arrest.
Núñez Ávila rushed to Cook’s house, where she found her son unresponsive in the garage. Paramedics transported the teenager to Marshall Hospital in Placerville, California, where he was pronounced dead. Alejandro, just a few weeks into his sophomore year of high school, had overdosed.
Alejandro is one of at least six people to have died after overdosing on drugs purchased on Silk Road, a now-defunct online marketplace where users could buy and sell illegal drugs such as heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine, according to court documents.
President Donald Trump pardoned the site’s founder, Ross Ulbricht, this month. Ulbricht had been sentenced to life in prison in 2015 after being convicted on seven counts, including conspiracy and money laundering, related to the sprawling empire he created.
🏛️
Follow Politics
In an interview with The Washington Post, Núñez Ávila slammed Trump’s pardon as hypocritical.
“He talks about immigrants coming here to the States, bringing drugs to the U.S., but yet he pardons this individual that was sentenced for life in prison back in 2015,” Núñez Ávila said. “I really don’t understand.”
“I strongly feel that individuals who are involved in distributing illegal drugs should be in prison forever,” she added. “These people should not be out here. They’re dangerous.”
The pardon was part of a May campaign promise Trump made to libertarian voters, who had long sought Ulbricht’s release. In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said signing the pardon was his “pleasure” and called Ulbricht’s life sentence “ridiculous.”
Núñez Ávila said when she first heard the news of Ulbricht’s pardon, she asked herself what was being done for those affected by Silk Road, saying Ulbricht “broke up a lot of families.”
“Our family is broken. Our life has not been the same since Alejandro left 12, 13 years ago, and it will never be the same,” she said.
The night of — and after
When Alejandro was 14, his parents bought him a Miami Heat basketball jersey for Christmas. The deep-red No. 6 jersey belonged to NBA star LeBron James, Alejandro’s favorite basketball player.A star in his own right, Alejandro had spent the past year playing basketball in Pollock Pines, California, for the Amateur Athletic Union. Whenever Alejandro made a layup, Núñez Ávila said, fans used to tell her that it looked as if he was flying.
Alejandro, who dreamed of attending college near the beach, died after overdosing on 25I-NBOMe, an LSD-like drug commonly referred to as “Smiles” or “N-bomb.”
According to court documents, Elijah Lee Richter of Camino, California, imported the drug from Europe to his home in El Dorado County after ordering from the site. Richter then sold some of the tabs to Jesse Roberts, who, in turn, sold the drug to Alejandro and his friends.
Alejandro took four hits of 25I-NBOMe that summer night, according to court documents. After ingesting the tabs, Alejandro became incoherent and aggressive. His friends tried to calm him down and were able to get him to sit in a chair. However, shortly afterward, Alejandro stiffened, fell face-first out of the chair and began having violent seizures, at which point his friends went to call for help.
Thursday would have been his 29th birthday.
“I don’t like to think about it, but you kind of wonder what he would be doing right now, what kind of life he would have right now,” Núñez Ávila said. “Would he have children? Would he be married? Where would he be working?”
Bryan Barry, 25, of Boston and Jordan Mettee, 27, of Bellevue, Washington, also died after taking drugs purchased on Silk Road, according to court documents.
Bryan was found dead in his Boston apartment in October 2013, just days after his 25th birthday. According to court documents, officers found a belt in his left hand and a small plastic bag of brown heroin and a syringe next to him. Law enforcement analyzed Bryan’s laptop and discovered that he had conducted several searches, including how to find heroin in Boston, the “fastest way to get a bitcoin” and “can you trust seller reviews on silk road.”
At Ulbricht’s May 2015 sentencing hearing, Bryan’s father, Richard, asked U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest, who was overseeing the New York case, to impose the harshest sentence possible.
“While it is true we are all born with free will that allows us to make our own choices in life, drugs that are highly addictive — like heroin — diminish or eliminate our ability to make good choices,” Richard said. “Ross Ulbricht’s Silk Road scheme removed all the natural ‘governors’ that would otherwise prevent people like Bryan from gaining access to a drug like heroin.”
The view from the cryptocurrency industry
Ulbricht created Silk Road in 2011. He operated the website on the dark web under the alias “Dread Pirate Roberts” — a reference to a character in the 1987 movie “The Princess Bride” — until it was shut down by law enforcement in 2013.Transactions on Silk Road were made using bitcoin, a digital currency that helped shield users’ identity. Ulbricht was considered a pioneer in the use of cryptocurrency.
Some cryptocurrency enthusiasts have lionized Ulbricht as a champion of a free market for everything, absolving him of the trades on his site because he profited only passively through fees instead of selling directly.
Ulbricht’s life sentence, and the revelation that two law enforcement officers tried to steal some of his riches while investigating Silk Road, reinforced his fans’ view that he was unfairly targeted.
Rank-and-file crypto holders — many of whom got involved in electronic currency after Ulbricht’s trial — cheered his release on social media, both as a redemption for a maligned hero and as a general positive sign for crypto’s future under Trump. Any retreat from regulation would make their holdings worth more, at least in the short term.
While Trump’s crypto czar, David Sacks, retweeted a positive take on the pardon, he did not voice anything directly.
In fact, few well-known crypto backers spoke publicly.
Some naturally did not want to be associated with the depths of the criminality. Others fretted that the pardon, along with a promised new approach at the Securities and Exchange Commission and Trump’s personal involvement in memecoins, which have no intrinsic value, could suggest a future with no rules at all.
That could hurt companies that have been following the law, and it could spiral into widespread criminality and provoke some retrenchment.
Paul Grewal, chief legal officer at Coinbase, was among those who tried to thread the needle by stressing that Trump had promised to free Ulbricht, a move that came as the crypto-friendly Libertarian Party asked Trump to speak at its convention.
“It tells you how deeply he is committed to righting all kinds of wrongs across crypto,” Grewal told The Post. “I think this commitment extends to creating clear rules for the industry, which we’ve already seen the new SEC say they will do.”
FBI agents and prosecutors who worked on the case declined to comment, with one citing the unpredictable political environment.
But the pardon has sparked concern and uncertainty within the law enforcement community.
“Ulbricht controlled one of the largest and most prolific illicit darkweb marketplaces, where heroin, cocaine and various other drugs and illegal services were offered,” former Department of Homeland Security investigator Cristopher Musto wrote on LinkedIn, adding that he generally supported Trump. “Law enforcement agencies across the United States did dozens of these marketplace cases, do they all get thrown out?”
