About a month after his arrest for allegedly running an international drug trafficking ring on a dark corner of the Internet and reporters are still digging up new information on Ross Ulbricht, a.k.a. Dread Pirate Roberts, that will inevitably find its way into the screenplay based on his takedown. The latest comes from Ulbricht's estranged best friend who has revealed that the alleged kingpin was a hippie who didn't like bathing and once wore a dress to his college physics exam.
The new information, which sounds like it would be great material in the hands of Aaron Sorkin, comes from an interview on Mashable with Jaspreet Sidhu, Ulbricht's best friend and former roommate. The two apparently haven't spoken in years, but Sidhu's got some fond memories of the guy.
Regarding the dress Ulbricht wore because he lost a bet on a racquetball match:
After losing the racquetball bet, Ulbricht squeezed into a skin-tight dress he borrowed from his girlfriend, Sidhu said."He looked damn good in that dress," Sidhu recalled. "Ross didn't give a shit. Ross wore it with panache."
Regarding Ulbricht's bathing habits:
"He's a hippie. That's the best way I can describe him," Sidhu said. "Ross was the guy who had stinky feet, that wore shorts — a shirt if you were lucky."
Elsewhere, a woman who once went on an OK Cupid date with Ulbricht recalls that he "weirdly took his shirt off" before passing out drunk.
Regardless of his decision to constantly go topless, Ulbricht's friends and former roommates are still trying to parse the story about a guy that many of them refer to as "a good person." Sidhu, for his part, called Ulbricht "one of the kindest and most good-natured people I know," who he believes could not possibly be responsible for ordering the execution of a Silk Road user. On the other hand, his alias Dread Pirate Roberts was known to start book clubs on the Silk Road forums that focused on "agorism, counter-economics, anarcho-capitalism, austrian economics, political philosophy, freedom issues and related topics."
As for Hollywood, they'll get their turn at depicting the Silk Road saga soon enough. It took less than two weeks for movie execs to jump on the story. The first project will be based on a story written by Joshua Davis for Wired magazine, who you might remember from his work following John McAfee to Belize. Another, a documentary about the crypto-currency Bitcoin that powered Silk Road's marketplace, is in the works from the guy who played Bill in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.
Previously: All Silk Road coverage on SFist
[Mashable]
[Defamer]
