Accused Silk Road drug trafficker won't be extradited from B.C. to the U.S., judge rules
This frame grab from the Silk Road website shows thumbnails for products allegedly available through the site. (silkroaddrugs.org)
A B.C. man accused of trafficking drugs through the now-defunct Silk Road will not be extradited to the U.S. after a B.C. judge found the evidence was insufficient to link him to the online account used to facilitate the illicit transactions.
James Ellingson was indicted in the United States in 2018, accused of a litany of offences alleged to have occurred on the online marketplace between 2011 and 2013.
The extradition hearing took place in B.C. Supreme Court earlier this year and the decision was posted online Wednesday.
Justice Lisa Warren's decision explained that her task was to determine if the circumstantial evidence provided by the U.S. was such that Ellingson – if charged in Canada – would be ordered to stand trial on the offences of trafficking in a controlled substance and illegally selling cannabis.
'The question is whether there is any admissible evidence that could, if believed, result in a conviction or, put another way, whether the evidence discloses a case on which a reasonable, properly instructed jury could convict,' the judge wrote.
'Where, as here, the evidence is circumstantial, the judge must conduct a limited weighing of the circumstantial evidence to assess whether, in light of all the evidence, it is reasonably capable of supporting the inferences that the requesting state asks to be drawn.'
Although Ellingson was accused of using three accounts to facilitate criminal activity, the judge found she was only required to consider the evidence pertaining to one – with the username 'MarijuanaIsMyMuse' which is abbreviated as 'MMIM' in the decision.
Warren's decision said she had 'no difficulty' finding that there was a 'prima facie case' that the operator or operators of the MMIM account 'engaged in conduct' that amounted to drug trafficking and illegal marijuana sales.
The account was used 'almost exclusively' to sell drugs, the decision noted, saying the data provided to the court showed the sale of 'significant quantities of various substances including methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, LSD, MDMA, and marijuana, in exchange for Bitcoin.'
The U.S. relied on three things it argued could 'considered collectively, and in light of all the evidence, give rise to a reasonable inference' that Ellingson was the operator or one of the operators of the MMIM account, Warren explained.
First, 'drug notations' in Elligson's email 'consistent with the narcotics sold' through the Silk Road Account. Second, a username and password for the MMIM account emailed to Ellingson in 2013. Third, a series of Bitcoin transactions, some of which occurred 'during the period in which the Silk Road server data indicates drugs were sold through the MMIM Silk Road account.'
Warren rejected the argument that there was enough to link Ellinson to the account.
'I have concluded that the evidence linking Mr. Ellingson to the MMIM Silk Road account is so bereft of detail that I cannot find that it is sufficient,' she wrote, before re-summarizing the evidence, or lack thereof, in full.
'It is not possible to conclude that this evidence, considered collectively, and in light of all the evidence in the (documents), is reasonably capable of supporting the inference that Mr. Ellingson was the person or one of the people who participated in the allegedly criminal transactions conducted through the MMIM Silk Road account,' the decision concluded.
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Jamie Sarkonak: He mildly questioned DEI. His law school calls that 'misconduct'
Article content The University of Saskatchewan's law school allows some of its Indigenous students to take more time on exams for the purpose of 'equity.' So, when this blew up into a faculty controversy in 2022, with proponents of the benefit aghast that anyone would ever question the idea as others quietly made their concerns known to student leaders, one member of the law school tried to make peace between the factions — only to be punished by the university for his efforts. Article content Tim Haggstrom's crime? Writing an open letter to his fellow students, from a neutral position, to foster dialogue and attempt to inject reason into the debate. His punishment? A campaign by other students to sabotage his career, culminating in an official finding of misconduct by a spineless university that appears to have forgotten its role in protecting free expression on campus. Article content Article content That campaign, at least, didn't work. Now a lawyer (and the national director of the Runnymede Society, whose local chapter events I often attend) Haggstrom, via his legal team at civil liberties charity Freedoms Advocate, is asking the Saskatchewan Court of King's Bench to have the misconduct ruling thrown out — along with the university policies that work to deny procedural fairness to those who don't emphatically agree with diversity, equity and inclusion. Article content For the university's own sake, Haggstrom better win. Article content He alleges unfair, Charter-infringing treatment in his court filings, and he's got a strong argument. At the time Haggstrom expressed the need for discussion over affirmative action at the law school, the University of Saskatchewan had already adopted an identity-based worldview, aimed at elevating certain groups in the university. Article content The institution had, since 2020, a diversity, equity and inclusion policy that implored the entire campus to uphold DEI values, cementing identity-based thinking — and with it, the idea that procedures are only fair when they result in equal outcomes between groups — into campus culture. That year, the university president committed himself to the 'dismantling of institutional structures, policies and processes that contribute to inequalities faced by marginalized groups.' Article content In 2021, the university signed a memorandum of understanding with the student union, committing to deliver anti-oppression and anti-racism training to staff, which was being rolled out by the next year. That initiative was led by anti-racist scholar Verna St. Denis, who has openly called for biasing university education to favour her own progressive, deeply racial worldview. St. Denis also contributed to the university's Indigenous strategy, also released in 2021, which planned for institution-wide decolonial change. Article content Further, according to the originating application filed in court by Haggstrom, the university had made training materials available on the topic of 'power and privilege.' The materials are no longer on the university website, but were archived online. They teach a hierarchical understanding of race (specifically, that white people have better access to education and success); they characterize meritocracy as a feature of 'settler mindsets'; they state that internalized colonialism causes oppressed people to commit sexual assault; they instruct readers to 'refute colonialism' (that is, the very basis of our nation) to assist in making Canada 'the friendly, open, welcoming country it espouses to be.' They remark that anti-oppressive education 'ought to be uncomfortable as white students begin to unlearn what they have been taught through their previous learning experiences.' Article content The course ends on a question: 'As an individual how can you decolonize yourself and what can you do with your power and privilege to help in the betterment of Canada?' Article content Senior management began having to take mandatory training on these concepts starting in April of 2022, according to the university. In 2025, these courses appear to still be required for professors who wish to participate 'in future tenure and search meetings.' Article content Despite gatekeeping the hiring process to only those who have taken a crash course in far-left thought, the University of Saskatchewan insisted in an email to me Tuesday that it 'has not mandated anti-racism training,' and that the training was required as part of the faculty agreement (to which the university is a party). Spokesperson Heather Persson went on to tell me, of the university more broadly, that 'There is no evidence of 'new political objectives' at USask,' and that 'Ensuring that qualified candidates from a wide range of backgrounds are not overlooked is not a political value of the left or the right.' Article content 'The assumption that USask does not embrace institutional neutrality is incorrect,' she added. 'These are politically charged times on university campuses across North America, and USask is committed to not taking political stands that may have a chilling effect on free speech at the university by faculty and students.' Article content That would perhaps read true if the university were also running institutional training on the benefits of meritocracy and classical liberalism, but there's no such thing. Instead, it's embraced DEI, objectively a left-wing pursuit, and put a hyper-progressive critical race scholar openly in favour of politicizing education in charge of the campus rollout. Professors must literally accept lessons on race astrology as a condition for full participation in the university. The former president of the institution, Peter MacKinnon, has referred to the faculty course as a 'propaganda module in which scholarly expertise and balance will not be found.' (The current university president continues to insist on providing one-sided political instruction to anyone participating in hiring.) Article content The law school is a lot like the rest of the university. Along with its policy of granting extra test time to certain Indigenous students which has been around since the 1990s, (specifically, those who were admitted through an Indigenous-specific pathway and attended an academic support program), the school began mandating a full-year Indigenous course for first-year students in 2018. These courses include sharing circles and personal reflection assignments, and cover colonialism, reconciliation and Indigenous legal traditions. Article content On top of that, the law school instituted mandatory anti-racism training for first-years in 2022, according to the court application, which was organized by another law student who had advocated for such training in the past. Article content All of this formed the backdrop to the law school's affirmative action controversy, which is illustrated in the exhibits that Haggstrom filed with the court. In January 2022, some students became concerned with the doling-out of extra exam time; in response, the law students' association president suggested investigating the matter at a meeting that month. The meeting minutes, filed with the court, recorded his concerns: 'High number of students who get extra time on exams. Our numbers are higher than most college of laws (sic), is turning into an issue of equity.' Article content When word of this reached the law students' Facebook group, the association president was inundated with paragraphs from students outraged that anyone would ever question the fairness of exam accommodations. A letter by the faculty's Indigenous law students' group invoked the 'unmarked graves' of 2021 (which have not actually been found to exist), made broad accusations of 'blatant racism,' demanded a public apology and insisted on mandatory anti-racism training in student governance. The law students' association president apologized (twice). The dean promised the faculty would spend even more resources on reconciliation in the next year. (All of these comments were filed with the court.) Article content It was at this point that Haggstrom entered the discourse. As a classical liberal, he personally supports pluralism, tolerance, dialogue and equality. When it came to the law school, he applauded the faculty's history of standing against racism, but was concerned that its more recent enthusiasm for racial training materials was contributing to student tension. He hypothesized that it might be corrosive to tell some students that they're being constantly oppressed, and others that they're constantly oppressing. Perhaps, he thought, that philosophy was a factor driving the souring state of student relations. Article content 'Race scholarship prefers an extremely broad, generalized, and severe conceptualization of racism while at the same time relying on an extremely narrow methodological toolkit to confront it,' he wrote in a letter to faculty members in February 2022. 'This combination appears to be having detrimental consequences at the College, especially for Indigenous students.' Article content 'At first glance …. students that adopt (the tenets of race scholarship) seem to genuinely experience a sense of meaning for being part of it…. Based on what I have seen more recently, however, I fear that this mindset for activism draws those students into cycles of social and informational isolation and into a self-reinforcing sense of feeling attacked, which is taxing psychologically. I fear that at the same time it provides a lack of tools to define or resolve racism in a tractable way. Further, in the broader student community, I fear that this activism results in a dampening of candid conversation. Article content 'On a level I find distinctly out of place in the context of higher learning, these students apparently adopt the view that, when it comes to race and racism, only they are right, the only reason someone would disagree is they haven't been 'educated,' and dissidents are not to be tolerated. Article content 'I don't see these students being encouraged to be in a psychological state, nor being given the tools, to effectively treat one incident as possibly a misunderstanding and to do so directly with the other person involved.' Article content He wrote a shorter letter to classmates in March, which he read aloud at a law students' association meeting. Article content 'In the last weeks, I have been watching carefully as this community has been embroiled in tension relating to topics of race and racism. Some students from both sides of this conflict report not being heard and not being safe. I wonder how we can do better. Article content 'Some students feel that belonging to a racial minority comes with (a) constant reminder that the system … doesn't bother to understand them. Instead, dominant systemic forces maintain a vicious, cruel track record towards people that look like them on the basis of race alone. And so, the prospect of a discussion about exam accommodations for Indigenous students threatens to force those students to justify their own existence in this community. Article content 'Other students feel that falling outside a particular race results in being judged as untrustworthy or morally unfit on the basis of race alone. For these students, on the presumption that such a discussion would be racist, they are denied any chance to discuss the exam accommodations policy that affects them as well. This is unfair. Article content 'I worry that our community may be cut into factions which stop talking to each other. I worry that such factions would be bound to spiral into deeper conflict. Each side will develop the impression that the other side is unreasonable and intolerable…. To my mind, the remedy is open, courageous discourse. Article content 'I hope we listen especially to those with whom we disagree; with those who irritate and even offend us. Life has taught me that it is from these people that I have the most to learn.' Article content In the same meeting, he also questioned whether the law students' association should add a requirement to open meetings with a land acknowledgement to its constitution (but ultimately voted in favour, according to his court filings). Article content This unleashed the ire of some students, who sought to punish him for expressing his views. Article content Classes wrapped up on April 1 that year, but faculty business continued. On April 20, a fellow student lodged a non-academic misconduct complaint against Haggstrom, alleging that he'd breached the university's harassment policy through his letter-writing and his resistance to the land acknowledgements. Article content Haggstrom 'made numerous attempts to spread hate throughout the College' that year, according to the complainant. She listed his letters to the faculty and the student body as prime examples of misconduct, and expressed concern with his 'racist views.' Article content 'His actions have contributed to the creation of an unsafe atmosphere for Indigenous students, myself included, within the College of Law. His various actions have had significant emotional, psychological and physical impacts on many of the Indigenous and non-Indigenous professors, teachers assistants (sic), and students alike within the College of Law.' She had made, but withdrew, very similar accusations against another student the month prior, according to Haggstrom's court filings. Article content The court application notes that the complainant never went on to explain, throughout the bureaucratic process, what physical impacts his open letter had on others. No evidence of psychological harm was advanced, either. Article content The complaint 'conveys, inter alia, a position that is against permitting dissenting dialogue, based on subjective concerns of harm experienced by the listener, including potentially creating psychological 'safety' concerns,' states the court application. Nevertheless, the complaint was taken seriously by school officials, perhaps because so much of the university's mission had been redirected towards a new goal of social transformation. University policies and documents, note the court application, 'demonstrate a prioritized institutional commitment to a social or political mission.' And indeed, it was clear that the institution had embraced a cancerously aggressive stance on eradicating all forms of oppression — so it tracks that even a student's tepid letter in favour of open-minded discussion found itself in institutional crosshairs. Article content By late April 2022, Haggstrom suggested that the university resolve the complaint by ordering a mediated conversation take place with the complainant. The university would only agree to this with the consent of both parties, which Haggstrom provided on May 20. His accuser's reply? An amended complaint on June 8 — the day of Haggstrom's graduation — and the addition of 15 other classmates to the complainant list. Article content Still, Haggstrom remained open to discussion, consenting again on June 9 to a mediated conversation with the growing herd of complainants. The next day, he learned that one of these new accusers had contacted his employer, a Calgary law firm, about the unfolding misconduct allegations. And on June 24, Haggstrom was told the complainants would not agree to a mediated conversation, which triggered a formal hearing. By June 27, half of the complainants, including the one who contacted Haggstrom's employer, withdrew their complaints, and another two followed the next year. Article content Haggstrom went on to file a complaint about the student who contacted his employer that fall, on Oct. 6. On Oct. 7, the university changed its mind about whether Haggstrom should be entitled to a mediated conversation with his accusers, and ordered that mediation take place — but only if he'd agree to acknowledge the 'harm' he caused. He refused, so a formal mediation was once again directed. Article content Mediation with Haggstrom's attempted employment saboteur, on the other hand, concluded in November. 'A comparison of the University's treatment of Haggstrom and (the saboteur) reveals a very different approach depending on whether a student's position accorded with the Institutional Commitment,' noted the application. Article content Finally, Haggstrom's actual misconduct hearings ended up taking place in May and August of 2023, more than a year after he graduated, after multiple attempts by counsel to have it dismissed. One high-ranked diversity consultant at the university, according to the application, attended to provide 'emotional support' for the six remaining complainants, a physical demonstration that the University of Saskatchewan was not a neutral party. Article content At the hearings, the complainants argued that Haggstrom breached the harassment policy by carrying out a discriminatory 'one-sided debate' about whether 'Indigenous students are deserving of exam accommodations.' Article content The ultimate decision was one of guilt: Haggstrom, ruled the university's senate hearing board in September, had committed discriminatory harassment in breach of the student code of conduct. He was ordered the next month to apologize and express regret. He attempted to appeal, but was denied in the summer of 2024 — two years after graduating from his program. Article content Now, he's hoping to rectify the situation in court. His application for judicial review and Charter relief is in the very early stages of the process, and the university has yet to file a response. We should expect a fight, though. The University of Saskatchewan staunchly defends its commitment to DEI and denies any political taint. In a statement provided to the Post about the case, it maintained that 'Senate hearing and appeal boards are unbiased panels that include student and faculty members who have no relationship with the matters under complaint.' Article content Well, we'll see what the court says about that. Haggstrom is arguing that the university and its boards can't possibly be impartial in adjudicating student expression that doesn't align with the politically progressive morals of DEI because, with the state of the campus culture, those who don't vote for sanctioning the speech of non-conformists would open themselves up to reputational risk. That fear would be well-placed, considering how Haggstrom's mild-mannered letter got him dragged through the disciplinary process. Article content It's deeply concerning just how far the University of Saskatchewan has gone down the rabbit hole. And yet, Saskatchewan's conservative minister of advanced education, Ken Cheveldayoff, backs the institution completely. Article content 'We have confidence in the University of Saskatchewan's leadership and its efforts to foster a positive environment for all faculty, staff, students, and visitors,' read a statement from the minister's office, when asked last week about the university's various DEI initiatives. Not even a safely conservative province like Saskatchewan can be trusted to stand up for common sense in education, it seems. Article content Article content
