You're right that he wasn't charged, but: "For example, because Ulbricht contested his responsibility for the five commissioned murders for hire, the district court found by a preponderance of the evidence that Ulbricht did in fact commission the murders, believing that they would be carried out." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht#cite_note-46
Just because something doesn't rise to the level of provability of getting charged and sentenced for it doesn't mean that you can't say with a high level of confidence it happened.
Corrupt, convicted ex government agents staged the murders, there is video evidence of some of them that they made for Ross to pay them. Which got them convicted.
Ross was not charged with that, wasnt charged with conspiracy to do that, wasnt put in front of a jury for that. Because the government would lose that case because of their corrupt agents and agencies (Baltimore FBI which hosted the skit) messing up the case.
This doesnt warrant a double life sentence for the crimes he was convicted of.
1 presidential candidate will commute (basically saying ~9 years is enough, ending this debate), 1 presidential candidate will pardon completely, 1 will likely do neither until the FreeRoss campaign learns how to do campaign contributions. Its only a matter of time as crypto savants gain position
Just because something doesn't rise to the level of provability of getting charged and sentenced for it doesn't mean that you can't say with a high level of confidence it happened.