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(Eastern District of Michigan - Detroit)
My husband, Conrad Rockenhaus, is wrongly incarcerated in a county jail. I’m posting this here because you are one of the few communities that will understand the full technical and political reality of how he ended up there.
My husband is a former Tor operator, and at one point, he ran some of the fastest relays and exit nodes in the world.
This nightmare began when he refused to help the FBI decrypt traffic from his exit nodes.
Months later, the government arrested him. Their official reason? A minor, non-violent CFAA charge from an old workplace dispute that had nothing to do with Tor.
In fact, the statute of limitations was just a couple of months from expiring. It was a clear pretext to target him.
That minor charge was all they needed to get him into the system. To deny him bail, a U.S. Probation Officer in Texas lied under oath, telling a judge that Conrad had installed a “Linux OS called Spice” to “knock out their monitoring software” and access the “dark web.”
Here is the technical reality of their lie: The software was a standard SPICE graphics driver needed for his Ph.D. program. As many of you know, this is a basic utility for displaying graphics from a virtual machine. It is not an OS, has no connection to the dark web, and was technically incapable of interfering with their monitoring software.
The claim is a technical absurdity, equivalent to saying a mouse pad can hack a server.
Based on that lie alone, he was held in pre-trial detention for three years.
Now, the retaliation has escalated in Michigan. After I filed a formal complaint against his US probation officers for harassment, they used fraudulent warrants to jail my husband again.
During this violent arrest by US Marshals (who smashed in our windows and nearly shot my dog) he sustained a severe head injury that caused him to have a grand mal seizure in court. The jail’s “medical attention” was to ask him what year it was (he said 2023) and then send him back to his cell. He is being denied real medical care.
See videos:
- Feds threatening to sick dogs on us
- Feds beating by husband in the head
- Feds smashing in our windows
- Feds threaten to shoot my dog
- More threats to shoot my dog
To make matters worse, U.S. District Judge Stephen J. Murphy, III has created a procedural trap that has stripped my husband of his right to a lawyer to fight for his life, health, or innocence. He is trapped in a constitutional and medical crisis.
I am not asking for money. I am asking for your help to amplify this story. You understand the technical truth and why this fight is so important.
We have all the evidence: the court transcript of the false testimony, the fraudulent warrants, the proof of medical neglect. It’s documented on my website:
TL;DR: My husband, a former Tor operator, refused to help the FBI decrypt Tor traffic. They retaliated by using an old, unrelated CFAA offense to arrest him and then lied about him using a "graphics driver to access the dark web” to keep him in pre-trial detention for 3 years. Now he’s been jailed again in Michigan on fraudulent violations, is being denied care for a head injury, and has no lawyer.
I need help getting the word out🙏
Adrienne Rockenhaus
For updates:
More Context from her comment:
Seeing a lot of questions and some misinformation in the comments, so I wanted to clarify a few key facts with sources:
- On the original case: My husband did not have a trial. He took a coerced guilty plea in Texas after being held for three years based on perjured testimony about a “SPICE graphics driver.” We have the court transcript proving the perjury on our website.
- On the violent arrest: The claim that my husband was “combative” is a complete fabrication, likely being spread to justify the U.S. Marshals’ actions. We have the unedited security camera footage of the entire raid, and it proves the opposite.
- On the relevance of Tor: The government’s retaliation against our family began after my husband, a Tor exit node operator, refused to help the FBI decrypt traffic. They then used an unrelated workplace dispute as the pretext for the initial charge. The entire case stems from his support for online privacy.
I’m seeing comments about a deeply offensive search term (“NAMBLA”) that the prosecution brought up in my husband’s 2020 hearing in Texas, and I want to address it directly so there is no confusion. The search was for an article my husband was writing for Encyclopedia Dramatica, a well-known (and very controversial) satirical wiki that parodies offensive topics. He was researching the topic to make fun of it, much like the show South Park did in a famous episode. The prosecution knew this search was irrelevant to the case, but they put it in front of the judge anyway . This is a classic “poison the well” tactic, using something shocking and out-of-context to prejudice a judge against a defendant. It’s a hallmark of a malicious prosecution. While they want everyone distracted by this, the real issues are the ones they can’t defend: the fraudulent warrants, the perjured testimony, the ongoing medical neglect, and the judge’s documented conflict of interest.
Not going to comment on the legal case, since I am technical, not a lawyer.
You can absolutely use a Spice Client to attempt to hide what you are doing on a PC from monitoring software. https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/SPICE
Have you talked to a lawyer? Specifically wrt his right to a speedy trial? Texas I found https://www.lisastrausslaw.com/blog/the-right-to-a-speedy-trial-what-it-means-and-how-to-enforce-it/
Michigan: https://www.hillslawoffice.com/blog/right-to-a-speedy-trial/
Try to get the news involved, make a ruckus. Bad publicity on technical incompetence and targeted harassment.
Darknet Diaries would probably cover this
Just finished the last episode about Ola Bini and this sounds close to what they did to him.
What’s that ?
straight to the gulags to do some forced labor if the gestapo dislikes what you are doing.
and this is supposed to be our example of democracy.
Unfortunately there is no longer any democracy in the disunited states. Your President declared to the world this week that he doesn’t care about the country being united.
not my president though 🙌
deleted by creator
i am not from the us though.
deleted by creator
i’m not making an intentional ussr analogy.
if anything, the gestapo was the nazi german secret police, so it’d be more of a german analogy i guess?
Good
Oh fuck, good luck fighting the system
If authorities are so concerned with CSAM why do they work for a pedophile? (donald trump is in the epstein files)
They don’t care about CSAM really, but we do, so it’s a great wedge to start with on destroying privacy, enabling control. But I think you already knew that.
That stuff is only for rich people not for the poors
Yeah, the Poor’s can’t afford the services that get you into the Epstein files!
Unlike Donald Trump… Who is in the Epstein files.
Ah but don’t worry they already told us our Dear Leader was only there because he was secretly working for the government to protect us!
Holy hell this reads like a horror novel.
I hope a major media outlet picks this up.
We did such a great job with AI and SEO that most media outlets literally do not understand the basics about the internet or computers, even when you’re reading content that is tech-focused. The media is completely incapable of covering this topic, and might even reproduce the same absurdity such as claiming a graphics driver is a dark web tool.
There are very few real journalists left, and they’re either busy dealing with the tremendous insanity that’s going on everywhere, or they’re being actively supressed.
We should have fought back against the death of journalism, but we didn’t, in fact, for a little while we even celebrated it. The consequences are that now we have a literal abyss between govermental corruption and abuse and the overall public being able to understand and react.
the EFF and ACLU might be interested, though - and they do work with the media and so on (even offering media training)
In North America the secret police arrest you for using a graphics driver to access the dark web
I hadn’t really noticed due probably to her somewhat odd face (too much makeup?) but she’s got nice boobs.
I just noticed that you’re a shitstain
I’m shattered.
Try contacting Legal Eagle. If your story is true, it should be a slam dunk. Also, the guy and his network is good about explaining the details of legal cases on Youtube. In a world where public acknowledgement is 6/10ths the law, a media savvy lawyer is much better than a oldschool one.
Absolutely yeah.
It would be amazing to see this as a LE video in a couple of weeks!
He currently has 3.7m followers on YouTube, so it would certainly shine some daylight on this situation.
Legal Eagle either won’t or shouldn’t represent a guy who caused his employer $500k in damages and has a history of parole violations and involvement in drugs and online harrassment
So he’s not a person now worthy of dignity? Should we kick his head in too since he did something bad once, seems like a fitting punishment. Why dont we just throw him off a cliff and be done with it. I mean, he probably had unclean thoughts once and deserves it anyway am I right?
No you clown. Your reading comprehension approaches nil while your ignorance trends to infinity.
Your opening line a) misses the point; b) puts words in their mouth.
An internet celebrity is being suggested to somehow speak about a man with an extremely complicated and criminal history; anybody with a brain could see it goes against the basic interests of the Channel presenter. Yet somehow you convert that into “WHAt You SaY! He NO gEt DiGnitTY?!”
Clearly he deserves dignity, and the details are appalling. But there’s something severely wrong with you and your ability to process a basic discussion.
Why are you so angry at a random internet stranger? You should figure that out…
Listen, if you have a history of parole violations including drug abuse, you hack your employer and cause 500K in damages, and you spend late nights looking up pedophilia organizations: then I think the only person not considering your dignity is you.
He’s (read: finitebanjo) literally said before that Mexicans arrested for crimes belong in the border cages.
And?
Regardless of who you are, you have a constitutional right to a trial, and to be judged by a jury of your peers. He can’t even get a trial at all, in three fucking years.
I don’t know what you’re not getting here. This is a gross miscarriage of justice. The person who had been incarcerated really isn’t, and shouldn’t be the focal point. The point is that they can, will, and are doing this shit to people.
I could give a shit less if the guy is innocent or guilty. But that part hasn’t even happened yet.
There’s no excuse that is acceptable for process and procedure to be this bad. No matter the crime.
News flash, the mexicans stuck in cages aren’t having fair trials, and this is a bad thing.
… Does this somehow justify them not giving anyone a trial?
You seem to be stuck in what-about-isms that emphasize that there’s a problem.
There is process and procedure that those people should have to go through that right now, ICE is just not doing. That doesn’t make what’s happening here any better. Both things are horrible.
I don’t get your point here.
Banjo is pro these things. I am anti these things.
So because other people are suffering, we should also allow others to succumb to suffering too?
The rhetorical answer is NO: we should fight for the rights of everyone. Mexicans, Haitians, Koreans, undocumented immigrants, conmen like Trump, fascists, and even pedophiles. Rights are afforded to everyone, and people’s behavior leading them to be arrested and tried is a sign of a poorly functioning society.
The only people that benefit from us bickering at each other are the capitalists. The sooner we all help each working class other, the sooner we can unite against the real cause of suffering in the world: the rich.
So because other people are suffering, we should also allow others to succumb to suffering too?
No! I’m anti suffering! Why am I being downvoted for wanting fair trials to mexicans?!
You are quite clearly missing the point, I kindly suggest that you read the other comments more carefully.
I’m not missing the point when Banjo said human respect is removed when you steal a candy bar, because it is illegal to steal.
Who is “he”? Man, this comments section is a shitshow.
They’re probably talking about me, I did indeed say once that for serious crimes like murder or rape that Immigrants should be detained and see trial. However, I never said they belonged in the ICE camps, nor did I extend that treatment to traffic violations an I definitely don’t respect the ICE’s “warrants” generated without any district attorney’s or judges involved.
I piss off a lot of Tankies so I encounter shitshows like this pretty often.
Do you have no empathy or understanding of human emotions?
I have empathy for him and his victims as well, and the foresight to see he was a danger to others if left unchecked, unfortunately you appear to have a deep hatred for the involved authorities and that’s clouding your judgement.
What are his victims in this? I’m honestly confused. It would take… a lot to justify some of the shady legal stuff going on here.
He supposedly caused his employer $500K in damages and also has a history of parole violations and behavior such as drug abuse and online harassment.
And that’s the key word in this conversation: ‘Supposedly’
This man has not had a trial nor any legal representation. These are purely accusations and he’s been afforded 0 opportunity to argue his innocence which should be assumed until proven guilty.
Innocent or guilty is completely irrelevant at this point, it’s his right to a fair trial that people are suggesting Legal Eagle should report on, and that I agree with.
Banjo does not want to wait, it’s good enough that he’s suspected of a crime.
As long as I live I will never enter the borders of the USA Jesus fucking Christ you guys have it bad there.
They’ve been progressing towards Christian fascist dictatorship for a long time.
The whole “overthrowing democratically elected governments coz they’re anti-American imperialism &/or socialist” was a pretty strong indicator they don’t give a shit about democracy.
For a lot of minorities, it has been a christo-fascist entity for the entire time. The ouroboros of fascism is just starting to eat its own tail.
Smart! I occasionally run into Chinese tourists over here at Independence Hall (where the country was founded), and every single time I pass I am like, “good lord, you all put your lives in your hands for Philly?”
It’s the Philly cheesesteaks, they aren’t there for freedom worship.
Listen I’m from here, I get it, but damn just video chat me I’ll teach you how to cook a good one at home for free! It’s not hard!
Might be difficult to get cheese whiz though
This is true, what with tariffs and export controls. But, here’s a little secret from someone who grew up here: there’s no one acceptable cheese type. Some like American cheese (the closest you’ll get outside of the US is probably semi-soft muenster or young white cheddar; ‘American cheese’ is just a form of buttermilk-rich mild white cheddar), some like fresh provolone, some like the trashy stuff because it forms more of a sauce that forms a better coating of fat on your tongue.
They’re actually all fine. The real secret is that you only use either rib eye or chuck, chip it extremely fine (you should be able to see light through a chip), and then fry it in a steel or iron pan with white onions and a dab of a flavorless seed oil, like corn or canola. Start it over low heat, and using a flat metal flipper (NOT a spatula. Look it up. There’s a difference), keep chopping that beef and onion mix until it forms thin sheets. Drop a slice (or dab) of cheese on top, and let it melt and seal the pan to steam the beef.
Then, chop it a couple more times. Place your flat flipper on the pan and let it very hot. Drop another slice or dab of cheese on it, then run it through the center of a V-split long roll. Here, our authentic rolls are yeast-risen with a tougher crust that flakes on the top layer, a bit like filoh dough. A baguette would be too firm. You want a soft roll that can be split down the longways. Then, put your chipped beef + cheese + onion mash into the roll, and bam, you’re right there at 2am on South Street listening to some rich kid scream-talk about how he wants someone to date him to walk into Condom Kingdom.
I think the only real rule is that if you’re using a high quality cheese, you’re doing it wrong
I live in the U.S. and just based on my lived experience so far I don’t see this type of thing as being particularly likely to happen to someone. To me it’s similar to how I probably won’t die if I drive to the grocery store. But every year tons of people die in traffic accidents so there IS a non-neglible chance that I will too. But I probably won’t. You’ll probably be fine if you come here, it’s not that bad yet.
Your lived experience == reality.
~5-7% of American citizens can expect to be incarcerated in their lifetime. Average time for state prison1 is 3.1 yearsmeaning this guy’s experience is, currently, average.
If you’re black that number jumps to 13-18%.
It has seen a significant decrease since 2008, with 2020-21 being the sharpest decline. It used to be the worst in the world by far, but post 2020 the US rate dropped significantly, nearly in half from 2008, and El Salvador went insane.
For comparison the likelihood of dying in a car accident is ~1.08%. Which is also rather high for a “developed country”
It isn’t just that bad, it’s worse. You just don’t know any better.
1 currently unable to find more general statistics
Psst, markdown turned your backslash from not-equals into equals
Nah this guy’s experience is not average. After all, ~5-7% of American citizens can expect to be incarcerated in their lifetime. The average experience is to never be incarcerated.
I stand by what I said. He’ll probably be fine. It’s not that bad. It’s not “I’ll never step foot in the U.S.” bad. Give me a break.
“average experience for those incarcerated in state prison” if you want to be pedantic about any of the specific parts there then go off king. It’s not a formal risk analysis, it’s a sanity check.
To be fair this is why incarceration rate is usually used instead. And by that metric if the US is safe then the only unsafe places in the world are El Salvador, Cuba, Rwanda and Turkmenistan.
And to reiterate the US in 2025 is a significant improvement on the state things since the peak back in 2008.
I hope more people understand this: the real legal system is social media now. Instead of lawyers, you pay PR companies to spin your story into a national news, that’s the only way to get expedited (fair?) trial now. Laws mean shit.
Not just the legal system. Need healthcare? Pay PR companies to run a GoFundMe.
The US runs on charlatanism.
charlatanism
Stealing that. Thanks.
Edit: wouldn’t that make it a Charlatanocracy? 🤔
That’s not true. Millions of dollars also works.
Getting elected as the president of the United States of America seems to be the top choice for rapists these days.
Child rapists
Getting someone elected as the president of the United States and baking sure they know you helped also works.
The Orville did an episode on this.
Oi oi oi, don’t make social media into a court of justice. Doesn’t end well.
It always has been like that… People are naive… Naive enough that most regular people paid for a built all this… Manipulated by marketing and psychology and pushed by fears and false dreams.
Mainstream life is the same as the streets… Anyone above will use you…
Is that what this post is? Spin doctoring for a druggy hacker?
It sucks these guys are going through this. Worst possible time to really need a fair and functional justice system. I hope someone points them to the ACLU; they’re built for exactly this situation: https://www.aclu.org/about/contact-us
Edited to remove misplaced condolences
I am not the original poster, I only posted it here.
I’m sure they’ve tried and probably have some help already. The ACLU is not infinitely full of resources and the state seems very hellbent on turning TOR into spyware through whatever coercion required.
Feel as though few people in comments here are acknowledging OP’s claims, in a fundamental sense.
TL;DR: My husband, a former Tor operator, refused to help the FBI decrypt Tor traffic. They retaliated by using an old, unrelated CFAA offense to arrest him and then lied about him using a "graphics driver to access the dark web” to keep him in pre-trial detention for 3 years. Now he’s been jailed again in Michigan on fraudulent violations, is being denied care for a head injury, and has no lawyer.
And from OP’s site
The Verifiable Lie: The software was, in reality, a pre-approved SPICE graphics driver for his Ph.D. program – not an operating system. It did not, nor could it, disable the monitoring software. Routh used this false claim to baselessly suggest Conrad might be accessing “dark web sites,” an inflammatory accusation she was forced to admit under oath she had no evidence to support.
This false testimony was fueled by a malicious campaign. We have documented proof that Conrad’s then-wife, Ashley Luster, was actively working to keep him incarcerated for her own financial gain. While he was imprisoned, she illegally made herself the representative payee for his Social Security disability benefits, directing the funds to her own account after divorce proceedings had begun. Financial records further document how she systematically drained his bank accounts, maxed out his credit cards, and spent his monthly pension and disability payments.
The Smoking Gun Confession: In a letter to her parents, Luster confessed, “I had some tricks up my sleeve to keep him in there”.
Documented Collusion: Emails reveal Luster colluding with Conrad’s own attorney, Walter Reaves, to secretly prolong his detention.
Based on this foundation of false testimony and conspiracy, Conrad was held for three years in horrific county jail conditions, where he was regularly beaten by guards and denied his life-sustaining seizure medication. The grueling ordeal ended only when he felt forced to accept a coerced guilty plea.
So to conclude, there’s a pretty broad spread of bizarre circumstances and claims according to other commenters here and at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45261163, as well as OP’s husband;
- Mr. Rockenhaus operated a Tor node, but has declined to assist the FBI in an investigation
- Mr. Rockenhaus’ ex-wife and lawyer were/are colluding to torpedo his case, and ability to remain free on bail pending trial, as well as committing SS fraud and robbing him blind
- The FBI has seized the property belonging to the (marijuana-based) business of his current wife (OP), and surety as retaliation to a formal complaint filed against his newest probation officer
- The prosecution team has either willfully misrepresented his use of Linux applications as violations of release conditions, or is incompetent and unable to reconcile the basic functions of Linux programs
- Mr. Rockenhaus plead to charges in connection to what’s alleged to be his sabotage of his former employer’s business, to the tune of about $500K in damages (see entries related to probation above)
- One of the prosecution’s exhibits at a previous hearing was a Google search for NAMBLA at 0200 - this one seems like an odd entry, as there doesn’t appear to be any accusation of access to CSAM material in either his former or current charges or legal cases
Just based on the transcript of his revocation of pretrial release, requiring him to be in jail while awaiting trial, it sounds like OP is misrepresenting the record.
https://rockenhaus.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/U.S.-v.-Rockenhaus-2-20-20-2.pdf
That transcript makes it pretty clear that the government’s evidence that he violated the terms of his pretrial release was that:
- He was required to download and install computer monitoring software on any device he used that accessed the internet.
- He did download and install computer monitoring software.
- Within 24 hours, the software logged internet activity of him visiting the Tor project site, and the Spice project site.
- The monitoring did not log him downloading or installing Tor software.
- The monitoring did log him downloading and installing Spice.
- The FBI agent testified that Spice was VM client software for remotely accessing VMs elsewhere. He also caveated that there were plenty of legitimate uses for VMs, and did not go a long with the prosecutor’s line of questioning suggesting that the VM software was installed to bypass monitoring. He simply acknowledged that it was possible to use such software to bypass the monitoring software, and testifying that such techniques were consistent with the hacking crimes that he was being charged with in that case.
- The monitoring software logged no more activity for something like 2 months afterwards. The guy claimed to his probation officer that he hadn’t been on his computer, or that he used his iPhone to access the internet.
- The terms of release required that he not use iPhones because iPhones couldn’t be monitored with the software the government had available.
It seems like kinda a shitty situation, but that’s also just how things work when charged with hacking crimes. It does look like the guy immediately bypassed the monitoring, and then lied about not using his computer. But the software itself sounds pretty shitty.
Whatever it is, though, the transcript doesn’t support the claim that he was just downloading graphics drivers. The circumstances all together do sound pretty suspicious.
I don’t know about all of that, it sounds like you are rat fucking somebody that’s already rat fucked. I don’t have the time or energy to get to the bottom of this but I do not trust you here.
With all due respect, what the fuck are you talking about? I’m not rat fucking anyone, especially not OP or the subject of the post. Who the fuck are you to say so, if you’ve not got the “time and energy to get to the bottom of this”? I don’t either, it’s a rough summary of material posted here and on OP’s site.
That very well might have been a misplaced reply to you, cause it makes no sense
Based on that lie alone, he was held in pre-trial detention for three years.
Aahhh the good ol’ United States of America where you can be locked up indefinitely without ever havig had a trial
Freedoooooom!
USA! USA! USA!
Or… hear me out. Is it possible his wife is telling the story in the most favorable way?
Remember how everyone was talking shit about the lady who got burned from hot coffee at McDonalds, and how silly it is to sue for getting hot coffee, except it was borderline boiling and she needed medical treatment for her burns.
Let’s learn from it shall we. Maybe wait until you have more information before forming an opinion.
It’s fairly common to be jailed for years while awaiting trial if you can’t pay for bail/bonds. I’ve personally known 3 people where this was the case. I had a (false) charge once, and I was out on bail for 3 years (restricting some of my freedom) before my lawyer could get in front of a judge and get it dismissed.
For those who don’t know.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restaurants
If we ever rewrite the Constitution, having an incarceration cap of 30 days that cannot be renewed nor given different charges would fix this bullshit pretty damn quick.
Law that is slow and meandering, is injustice.
After watching the Nepali youth flip the fucking country upside down and elect their new prime minister using a Discord poll, I grow more confident every day that we will see a new Constitution in our lifetime.
I honestly wouldn’t mind America having a reboot. It has been my feeling since the turn of the millenia that America has been falling apart in slow motion. I wanted to live in a prosperous and just nation, but something has felt sour for the longest time.
In any case, if America does have a civil war, I expect to serve as an ordinary soldier for the ReUnion. I want to live the rest of my life in a positive peace, but I have the feeling that the conservatives would destroy everything that makes life worth living.
Isn’t this already the 6th amendment in spirit? If they’re calling this guy’s trial speedy, then I don’t believe they even care what words mean.
Part of the problem is that there aren’t specifics, IMO. Back in the days of the 13 colonies, there probably wasn’t enough consistent means of communication, transport, and supply of legal specialists to get stuff done - thus left vague. By making concrete rules, it becomes harder for abuse to happen.
While it does ultimately boil down to human will, rules that have a solid structure can help guide interactions.
This is something that should be defined in law, but in the Constitution, “speedy” should be enough.
Yeah, they should probably make that defined in a law.
https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-628-speedy-trial-act-1974
The real problem is the system operates on an expectation you will wave the right to a speedy trial, and once waved its my non lawyer understanding you can’t reassert it. So they push you to wave it, additionally you and your lawyer often wants it waved too because the government has as much time as they want to prepare their case before your arrest but you and your lawyer are playing catch up so more time means you’re more prepared for trial.
Law doesn’t mean jack shit if it isn’t enforced.
