[HN Gopher] $8B Sam Bankman-Fried criminal trial starts today
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$8B Sam Bankman-Fried criminal trial starts today
Author : perihelions
Score : 116 points
Date : 2023-10-03 14:24 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnbc.com)
| seydor wrote:
| [flagged]
| vkou wrote:
| > To what extent is Sbf used as a scapegoat by the media.
|
| When you've actually done a lot of crime, you're not a
| scapegoat for the village's sins, you're an actual sinner
| getting his just deserts.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Am I so out of touch?
|
| No, it's the investors who were wrong.
| cobbal wrote:
| "cheap money" isn't currently a crime, but fraud is. I can't
| say either way about unhinged VCs.
| shapefrog wrote:
| [flagged]
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _To what extent is Sbf used as a scapegoat by the media_
|
| The guy who pretended he was running a legit exchange and hedge
| fund, lied to lenders, spent customer's funds, acted like an
| altruist (while laughing about it being bullshit) and made dark
| political donations is a "scapegoat by the media"?
| eastbound wrote:
| Yes. All of those should have required proof, they are
| required to require proof. In the normal world, it is not
| possible to commit even 10k$ fraud without the signoff of 5
| people, so why is a billion dollars in the hands of a
| 26-year-old different.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| The point of scapegoats is that the scapegoat is actually
| sinless, and the sins of others are transferred onto the goat
| to be sacrificed. SBF is not sinless, he's getting what he
| deserves. He will be punished for his own crimes, not for the
| crimes of others. In no conceivable way is he a scapegoat.
|
| Other exchanges run by other people also committed crimes, but
| those crimes aren't what SBF is on trial for. He's on trial for
| his own crimes.
| shawnz wrote:
| SBF aside, I don't think it's true that a scapegoat must be
| sinless. Actually I think that's impossible, as the
| expression goes "Give me six lines written by the hand of the
| most honest man, I will find something in them which will
| hang him". In fact I think the best scapegoats have some
| objective fault which lets you seed the blame for them more
| easily.
| panzagl wrote:
| Goats sin?
| throw7 wrote:
| That's more a colloquial sense, which I think imo is closer
| to a 'fall guy'. The parent is the biblical sense.
| mikestew wrote:
| _SBF aside, I don 't think it's true that a scapegoat must
| be sinless._
|
| It's an Old Testament thing, the original meaning can
| easily be looked up. Some take the scapegoat as a metaphor
| for the New Testament Jesus (who is viewed as sinless by
| most followers). Ergo, we lay the sins of the community
| upon the innocent goat, and send him out in to the desert.
|
| Regardless, I'll give you that goats can be ornery little
| fuckers, but I don't think they do a lot of "sinning" in
| the biblical sense.
| shawnz wrote:
| I'm aware that it's a biblical idea, but even in the
| biblical sense, is it explicitly specified that the goat
| being without sin is relevant to its ability to be a
| scapegoat, aside from the fact that animals are incapable
| of sin as far as Christians are concerned?
|
| Regardless, clearly the colloquial definition is what the
| original poster was referring to anyway, since any
| Christian must necessarily believe that SBF along with
| every other human alive today is subject to original sin.
| dehrmann wrote:
| I wouldn't call SBF a scapegoat. Lots of startups took VC money
| and didn't go on to allegedly commit fraud. Startups' business
| models might have been overly optimistic and VCs didn't pay
| enough attention, but that's not really on trial, here.
| hypeit wrote:
| > _To what extent is Sbf used as a scapegoat by the media._
|
| 0%, in fact 60 Minutes just did a puff piece hagiography for
| him on Sunday:
|
| https://www.cbs.com/shows/video/SLLumNQElCg4KvRF7GUbpKX8_VAJ...
| matt004 wrote:
| [flagged]
| wmf wrote:
| He's white enough.
| outside1234 wrote:
| [flagged]
| matt004 wrote:
| [flagged]
| wincy wrote:
| Having whitish skin is pretty much the only criteria for
| whiteness in the modern world.
| artursapek wrote:
| Fun story, I was in a Telegram room with SBF once when my team at
| another company was listing FTX data on our platform. This was
| 2021. I asked where their headquarters was (a standard piece of
| data we listed for each venue) and none of their team knew what
| to say. Eventually he chimed in with "let's just go with Antigua"
|
| I remember thinking wow how strange, I wonder if these guys are
| doing sketchy shit. Little did I know.
| diamondfist25 wrote:
| I had most of my networth in FTX and it all went down with it.
|
| 20 yrs of work, savings, and TSLA + NVIDIA winnings gone just
| like that
|
| It didn't make any sense what ftx was doing at the time. It's one
| thing to steal and embezzle, it's another to rob the thing
| wholesale from top to bottom.
|
| Its almost like someone schemed all this out, just to funnel
| people's money to politicians
|
| I'm afraid we won't ever get to the truth of it, kind of like the
| Epstein case
| matt004 wrote:
| [flagged]
| tombert wrote:
| I'm generally against punishment as a whole, as I don't think it
| works generally, but considering how little responsibility SBF
| has taken for stealing all this money I think there's a
| reasonable chance that he'll just turn around and do the same
| scam again if he's not thrown in jail, or at the very least
| having the SEC monitoring every single thing he does.
|
| Granted, I'm a victim of the Gemini Earn unregistered security
| scam [1], and so maybe I cannot be an impartial judge here, but
| SBF is kind of the only non-violent offender that I can think of
| right now that I honestly feel should be locked up and throw away
| the key.
|
| [1] Before you give me a lecture about how I should have known
| better and how you'd never fall for such a scam and how Gemini's
| claims of FDIC insurance would _never_ fool anyone smart, just
| rest assured I 've heard it from the denizens of HN and my peers.
| I know I was stupid to have done anything with cryptocurrency,
| and even more stupid to think that Gemini wasn't misleading
| people about their Gemini Earn program. Just to be clear though,
| it's not _my_ accusation to called Gemini Earn an unregistered
| security, it 's the SEC's (https://www.sec.gov/news/press-
| release/2023-7).
| oooyay wrote:
| IANAL but I'm curious if intent is the deciding factor. Maddoff
| got 150 years because he knowingly operated a criminal
| enterprise and admitted to the whole thing eventually. His sons
| even testified against him when they found out. Maddoff went to
| great extents to construct his criminal enterprise, operating a
| small boiler room out of the front office.
|
| If prosecutors can show that actual malice and intent were part
| of his motive then logic would follow he'd get a Maddoff-like
| sentence. If he's just the worlds biggest bumbling idiot that
| people put too much faith and money in then it'd be lesser. I'm
| not quite caught up to _when_ SBF knew he 'd started a criminal
| enterprise versus when he was making reckless decisions.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Consider adding corruption and large-scale fraud to your list.
|
| Punishment has three purposes: deterrence, incapacitation and
| retribution. The first two are simple. The last seems
| irrational. Yet if you ignore it, you wind up with people
| executing a parallel system of justice ( _i.e._ taking matters
| into their own hands) and generally losing trust in society.
|
| Within the category of crimes that maximise the need for that
| last element, it's wide-scale actions that harm a lot of
| people, visibly, done by a member of or someone perceived to be
| proximate to the elite.
| ajkjk wrote:
| aside: I see "retribution" on these lists a lot and usually
| these days it's disgarded. IMO it's discarded prematurely.
|
| The sort of retribution that is like "X hurt me, so punish
| them" is the one everybody seems to no longer believe in, and
| that's fine. But there is another sense of retribution that I
| think is very valuable, which is "maintaining the status quo
| that people who commit crimes are punished for them". It's
| not personal retribution but more of a "belief that the
| system will handle retribution", and it is important because
| it helps us believe that there is a legitimate criminal
| justice system that takes care of justice for us and which we
| can delegate justice to.
|
| You alluded to this in your comment when you said "losing
| trust in society". Mostly I just want to observe that to me
| it feels like it deserves a separate bullet-point instead of
| being lumped in with "retribution".
| bluefishinit wrote:
| I would rather have a belief that the system will find the
| root causes of crime and take actions to fix them then
| believe the system will punish those who break the rules.
| Punishment causes damage to society beyond just the
| individual being punished. Criminals have jobs, families
| and relationships with people who haven't broken the law.
| Punishment should be used sparingly as the cost to all of
| society is high. I also believe we'd have lower crime if
| the massive budgets currently being used on police would be
| instead used to improve the health and welfare of high
| crime communities.
| matkoniecz wrote:
| > I would rather have a belief that the system will find
| the root causes of crime and take actions to fix them
| then believe the system will punish those who break the
| rules.
|
| I prefer both
| hiatus wrote:
| > I would rather have a belief that the system will find
| the root causes of crime and take actions to fix them
| then believe the system will punish those who break the
| rules. Punishment causes damage to society beyond just
| the individual being punished.
|
| In your belief it seems you discount the cost of "finding
| the root causes of crimes and taking actions to fix them"
| with the idea seeming to be that a greater good is
| achieved that way than through punishment. However, you
| fail to realize that there are very real costs to society
| for enabling this root cause analysis, to the detriment
| of our civil liberties. Every time you take off your
| shoes at the airport, you are being punished for someone
| else's crimes.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _would rather have a belief that the system will find
| the root causes of crime and take actions to fix them
| then believe the system will punish those who break the
| rules_
|
| I thought similarly. But these are baked into our
| psyches. Jailing the drunk driver won't bring back the
| dead child, but if you don't do it there will be
| backlash. This sense is profound enough that we generally
| celebrate people who take justice into their own hands
| when they're denied retribution through lawful channels.
|
| If I were to cite one common failure mode of the last
| decades' criminal justice reform efforts (in America, but
| coast to coast) it's in attempting to rationalise away
| our social need for retribution. The key is in
| recognising that every exercise of justice need not
| satisfy all three facets. A remorseful defendant need not
| be incapacitated. And a crime with no human victim need
| not seek retribution.
| simplicio wrote:
| "we shouldn't lock people up for non-violent crimes except for
| ones similar to the one I was a victim of" seems like kind of
| a..limited view?
|
| I don't think there's anything particular about SBF that makes
| him more likely to re-offend (And even if he wanted to, one
| would hope he'd have a hard time convincing folks to hand over
| another 8 billion for him to embezzle a second time).
|
| Which isn't to say that I don't think he should go to jail (he
| definitely should!), just that I don't think he's any more jail
| worthy then people who engage in other forms of non-violent
| theft and/or fraud.
| tombert wrote:
| Well, I mean, that's why I admitted my bias. I do think I'd
| have the same position even if I weren't a victim of a crypto
| scam, but I felt it important to disclose potential conflicts
| in what I'm saying.
|
| SBF went on many podcasts and interviews, and instead of
| showing even the slightest hint of remorse, he instead denied
| everything, blamed everyone but himself, then pleaded
| ignorance, all while also claiming that he probably won't be
| charged with any crimes. I recommend looking at CoffeeZilla's
| coverage on this.
|
| We can find plenty of examples of convicted conmen that
| manage to get funding again. Off the top of my head, the wolf
| of Wall Street himself, Jordan Belfort, was convicted of
| securities fraud, spent almost two years in jail, was banned
| from any kind of stock trading, but now promotes all kind of
| cryptocurrency and multilevel marketing scams.
| fatfingerd wrote:
| I think I would more easily be convinced that Madoff deserved
| rehabilitation than SBF.
|
| There are certain behaviors in fraudsters that make me think
| they are psychopathic fraudsters and really incapable of
| dealing with the world without deceit. That naturally
| overlaps other dark triad traits that make it hard but not
| impossible for someone to put aside deceit and allow some
| deflation of their ego, etc.
| gmerc wrote:
| Can you say this with a straight face while seeing so many
| people over and over pay Donald Trumps legal fees by donating
| to the latest cause.
| tombert wrote:
| I'm not a fan of Donald Trump at all, but he's never
| actually been _convicted_ of fraud has he?
|
| I'm not disputing that he's committed fraud, but I think
| that a lot of his followers can do a lot of mental
| gymnastics and convince themselves that he never actually
| did anything illegal, in no small part because he's never
| directly been convicted.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Isn't he banned from operating a nonprofit in New York
| now, and didn't Trump University get a civil judgement
| (I'm aware you might not call that a fraud conviction)
| that disbanded it? That's just from memory - if not
| _technically_ a criminal, he 's quite certifiably
| crooked, but people will still throw money at him, and
| I'll never understand people.
|
| The other figure that comes to mind is Adam Nuemann (and
| I'm not alleging anything criminal against him), but
| apparently he just has a personality that draws VCs with
| dumptrucks full of money like moths to a flame.
|
| Clearly people just have tons of money they don't need
| these days.
| tombert wrote:
| In regards to Trump University, I think it was
| technically settled [1]. I think in that particular case,
| people argue he had plausible deniability because it was
| just a bad branding deal, and that _he_ wasn 't directly
| involved in anything crooked. I don't remember the
| outcome the Donald J Trump foundation embezzlement
| scandal from a few years ago, but I'm sure his followers
| would just say NYC is a crooked liberal state and it was
| rigged against him anyway. In fact, _because_ it 's
| rigged against him, that's why he needs donations!
|
| Just to be clear, _I_ think he 's a moron and a
| fraudster; even if you could prove that Trump University
| and the Donald J Trump Foundation and the hoarding of
| classified documents and the collusion with Russia was
| all hogwash, the fact that he didn't divest himself from
| his businesses after assuming power should be a bright
| red flag to people.
|
| [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/federal-
| court-a...
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Wasn't there a survey showing that his followers now
| trust him over their religious leaders? Which I guess
| says it all.
| tombert wrote:
| He used blatantly demagogical language throughout his
| entire campaign and presidency, and basically claimed
| that "he alone" knows how to fix every problem.
|
| I tend to be pretty far-left (at least by American
| standards), but some of the "Bernie Or Bust" rhetoric has
| gone a bit crazy sometimes; I don't think Bernie Sanders
| is nearly as horrible as someone like Donald Trump (I
| voted for him in the primary in 2016), and I certainly
| don't think he's an outright fraudster, but I do feel
| like he (and his followers) kind of cozy up to demagogue-
| adjacent language as well.
|
| I think people really really like the idea that one
| magical person can and will solve all their problems.
|
| But that's about as far as I'll go towards partisan
| politics since I don't want to get hellbanned.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| I suspect we're ideologically fairly close though I did
| not vote for Sanders in the primary, I believe I actually
| skipped 2016 then voted for Warren 2020, but I'd have
| been fine with Sanders though I agree he did have a
| fanatical contingent that was a bit off-putting. I don't
| think he actively encouraged that either.
|
| I've long worked with and even dabbled a bit in sales
| (which would have shocked a young hotpotamus to learn -
| it's basically the opposite of my natural inclinations).
| I was quite bad at it myself - I would often try to
| explain nuances to people and how they need to invest in
| their own skill as well as buying a good product.
| Salespeople who promised them simple solutions that would
| solve all their problems were far more successful, which
| was a bitter early lesson for me.
|
| What rankles though is that Trump is so transparently a
| buffoon - I can't believe it works for him.
| tombert wrote:
| > I would often try to explain nuances to people and how
| they need to invest in their own skill as well as buying
| a good product.
|
| Yeah, this is (partly) why I was not a good
| professor/teacher. I don't think I was _horrible_ at it,
| but I have a very strong compulsion to mention every bit
| of nuance in what I 'm talking about. Sometimes that can
| be a good thing, but when a student is trying to learn
| introductory programming, getting into the weeds about
| how the textbook is "basically right but kind of
| simplistic because in this case..." really is not the
| right approach for teaching freshman students. I grew a
| new respect for teachers who learned to suppress those
| instincts and teach the simplified stuff.
|
| I almost think that Trump being an idiot works to his
| advantage. He's so utterly stupid that I think he's
| completely unburdened by any kind of nuance, and as a
| result it's very easy for him to speak authoritatively
| about everything, no matter how wrong he is.
| hermanradtke wrote:
| > he's never actually been convicted of fraud has he?
|
| His corporation was given the death penalty for wildly
| overstating the value of assets.
| idontpost wrote:
| [dead]
| knorker wrote:
| Punishment, deterrence for others, and deterrence for the
| individual themselves, are three important parts of why the
| state has consequences for bad deeds.
|
| The US is pretty punishment-heavy. As a non-US person it even
| looks sadistic. It's "now I got you, you son of a bitch" social
| game from "Games People Play".
|
| Since you're against "punishment as a whole", I assume you by
| "punishment" mean "I want them to suffer for what they did"?
|
| Giving more than (say) 20 years to most 20-year-old murderer is
| no different from 120, from either deterrence perspective. When
| they're 40 they'll be a different person. 120 years of terrible
| prison conditions does not make anyone better off, compared to
| 20. Except for the victim's "sense of justice". But man, 20
| years? No year more than that will bring your loved one back.
|
| Anyway, I agree that we need both types of deterrence for SBF.
| Otherwise what's to stop people counting on getting "only" 10
| years. Steal a billion dollars, hide it in cryptocurrencies,
| and when you get out of prison you're older, sure, but you are
| super rich.
|
| We need deterrence from him doing it again. And we need
| deterrence for everyone like him, and everyone who would be
| remotely involved him people like him. People need to know that
| if you help this kind of scam, there are dire consequences.
| Which is why his parents should face the full weight of the
| harm they caused, to show that it will all be taken away.
|
| But I don't see that as "punishment". Not in the way I think
| you mean it.
| nineplay wrote:
| > When they're 40 they'll be a different person.
|
| Is there any evidence of that?
|
| I say this with sympathy as I suspect some number of violent
| individuals have as-yet-undetected genetic abnormalities that
| would make them 'blameless' for their actions if we could
| track it down. However that wouldn't change their behavior.
| My son has a non-violent known genetic abnormality and in
| 20/40/60 years his behavior wouldn't change unless some
| effective treatment is found.
|
| So I think there needs to be some realism injected into this
| discussion. There are people I would not want as next door
| neighbors even after they've served a long prison sentence.
| knorker wrote:
| In addition to the other reply you got from someone else:
|
| I'm not saying they'll necessarily be great people. But
| people do change. Especially the understanding of
| consequences is not fully developed in your early 20s.
|
| So even if they are basically the same people, they would
| be much less likely to act on it at 40 than at 20. And
| really, we're talking about deterrence of committing
| crimes, not deterrence of bad moral character.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| There's a lot of evidence that most people mellow out with
| age, age-crime curves show this clearly with dramatic peaks
| in the late teens. Teenagers and young adults are more
| prone to acting impulsively, with less foresight for the
| future.
|
| There may be some people who are irreparably 'genetically
| damaged' from birth and will never improve, but this isn't
| the general case.
| tombert wrote:
| I feel like most of us kind of intuitively know this at a
| somewhat visceral level. If a two year old does something
| obnoxious (e.g. throws food at you), I think most people
| won't be nearly as upset as if a 40 year old did. I know
| when my nieces or nephews do something annoying, it's
| substantially easier for me to roll my eyes and say
| something like "they're just kids, don't get angry with
| them" than it is when a full-on grownup annoys me.
|
| I'm quite confident that 18 year old me was still
| basically a child. I never committed any violent crimes
| when I was 18, but I did a lot of other dumb irrational
| things that I don't think I'd do now.
| tombert wrote:
| > Since you're against "punishment as a whole", I assume you
| by "punishment" mean "I want them to suffer for what they
| did"?
|
| Yeah, I clarified in a sibling comment, but that's basically
| what it comes down to.
|
| I generally just don't think punishing people with the
| express purpose of making them suffer is a good thing. I
| think it's cruel, and I also don't think it actually works in
| regards to helping society long-term. The fact that it's sort
| of common knowledge that you'll be sexually assaulted in
| prison, and people seem bizarrely fine with that because
| "they deserve it" really disturbs me, for example.
|
| In regards to SBF specifically, I'm not convinced he won't
| try and run a similar scam again; if not in the US, then in
| another country with less strict securities laws. He doesn't
| appear to have any remorse about what he's done, and blamed
| everyone but himself for everything.
| knorker wrote:
| I agree that we have no need for vengance against the
| criminal.
|
| But the fact that SBF would do it again is not a case for
| vengance/punishment, but for deterrence. And, frankly, it's
| harder to launch your next scam while you're currently
| incarcerated.
|
| I hear you saying "I don't want vengance, but...", but
| there's actually no contradiction there. You want
| deterrence and to prevent recidivism.
|
| And merely taking all his money, and all his parents money,
| is not actually a deterrence. But that doesn't mean prison
| is vengence/punishment for punishment's sake.
| quesera wrote:
| > _it 's sort of common knowledge that you'll be sexually
| assaulted in prison_
|
| While a blase attitude toward such abuse is certainly
| reprehensible, I don't think there's any support for the
| magnitude you describe.
|
| Even the most dramatic statistics imply that prisoners are
| far more likely to _not_ be assaulted.
|
| Official numbers are like 2-5%, activist numbers are in the
| 20% range.
|
| Anything greater than 0% is horrifying of course. Although
| FWIW I also checked official and activist numbers for non-
| incarcerated males and females in the US, and it's actually
| very similar.
|
| (Never been in prison, never been a victim, never been a
| perpetrator, not in law enforcement, not an activist, don't
| know what I'm talking about, but wish the problem could be
| understood honestly and eliminated completely.)
| tombert wrote:
| I suppose that's what I get for relying on common
| knowledge.
|
| If that 20% number is right, that's completely
| terrifying. A 1 in 5 shot being sexually assaulted is
| still very high, and when I have argued with people about
| prison reform, they seem wholly uninterested in fixing
| the problem.
| matt004 wrote:
| [flagged]
| tigeroil wrote:
| In what sense doesn't it work though? Because from a re-
| offending rate it unequivocally does work.
|
| In terms of preventing new crimes from being committed, I
| think the honest answer is "it depends". I think early
| intervention and preventing crime in the first place is
| always going to beat punishing people for crimes after the
| fact.
| bumby wrote:
| I don't think this type of dichotomy of thinking is
| helpful. Given that the research seems to suggest that
| "heavy punitive sentencing" doesn't reduce crime, I think
| the take away is that human behavior is difficult to
| change.
| freedomben wrote:
| What? Citation is definitely needed for that claim about
| Scandinavia.
|
| Restorative justice may not "work" for every single person
| in every single situation but neither does punitive
| sentencing. If you look at recidivism for whether it
| "works" then restorative justice performs way better in the
| majority of cases. Then we should consider the
| moral/ethical correctness of what the justice system is and
| what it should do.
| knorker wrote:
| But then it's not punishment for punishment's sake, but for
| deterrence's sake.
|
| I read the comment as talking about retribution, to make
| the victim feel good, not about deterrence.
|
| Are you saying you have data to show that 20 years for
| murder has a different deterrent effect than 120 years for
| murder?
| monero-xmr wrote:
| You are against the concept of punishment as a whole? Or just
| for financial crimes?
|
| I don't think without the threat of jail - which is society
| taking away your time - some violent people would avoid crime.
| tombert wrote:
| I'm generally against punishment for punishment's sake;
| obviously if a serial killer is running loose, they should be
| locked up as a matter of making sure they don't kill more
| people, and maybe that even applies to non-violent crimes as
| well.
|
| What I don't like is the American take [1] of locking people
| up for years and years and then ruining their remaining lives
| with a felony conviction making them forever unemployable,
| all to stroke some kind of cosmic idea that we are "even" for
| whatever they did.
|
| If you look at other countries that have a much higher
| emphasis on reformation, and less of an emphasis on
| "punishment", they have a measurably lower recidivism rate.
|
| That's basically what I'm getting at; I don't really believe
| in "punishment" as some cosmic good, I believe in maximizing
| safety and reformation.
|
| [1] Just a disclaimer, I'm American.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| Here in New Zealand the current government came into power
| 6 years ago with a policy of reducing the prison population
| by 30 per cent. Not by increasing focus on prevention of
| crime, but by locking up fewer people. They achieved this
| target, and as a result crime - especially violent crime -
| has skyrocketed.
|
| I think you live in a sheltered little bubble. In fact we
| know from your first post in this thread that when you're
| personally impacted by crime you quickly change your tune,
| much like hundreds of thousands of former NZ Labour voters.
| tombert wrote:
| > In fact we know from your first post in this thread
| that when you're personally impacted by crime you quickly
| change your tune,
|
| That's actually not what I said. I was disclosing a
| potential bias but I never said that I "changed my tune".
|
| I was mugged about two month ago and had my expensive
| iPhone stolen out of my hands. I filed a police report
| and reported the phone stolen to Apple, but I very
| explicitly said that I didn't want to press any kind of
| criminal charges on the off chance that the phone is
| recovered and the thief was caught.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| You call it 'cosmic good', but there's nothing cosmic about
| it, the victims are often right there in court, and it
| isn't exactly justice if all they get for the suffering
| that was inflicted on them is to get to see their offender
| get some therapy and let out to live his life.
|
| Eg, a rape victim is likely going to have at least mental
| scars for much of the rest of their life, there's nothing
| cosmic about the rapist having to suffer for at least a
| comparable length of time for inflicting that on the
| victim.
| tombert wrote:
| I don't believe that two wrongs make a right. I also
| don't believe the world is a video game where "suffering
| points" are counted. I of course feel bad for any victim
| of a violent crime like murder or rape, but I don't
| really see how it benefits the world to have the rapist
| "suffer at least for a comparable length of time as the
| victim".
|
| A rapist should obviously be put in jail to prevent them
| from raping other people, so I'm not saying that they
| should be free from consequences, but no, I don't think
| the world is better place because we have a bureaucratic
| reenactment of "I Spit on Your Grave".
|
| Maybe in some isolated case a violent offender will feel
| the punishment and pain they're getting and then
| empathize and feel like they brought it on themself, but
| I think in a vast majority of cases, the offender has
| already rationalized what they're doing and just gets
| increasingly mad at the system.
|
| How exactly would you even measure a "comparable length
| of time of suffering"?
| pseg134 wrote:
| I'm sure you realize how abnormal your opinion is. Most
| people and societies disagree with you. You shouldn't
| speak as of your ideas are inherently correct.
| tombert wrote:
| I'm not sure why you are saying this. I never claimed my
| ideas are inherently correct, I didn't try and provide a
| syllogism or proof or anything, I just said what I
| believe.
|
| I agree they're not terribly common. That's fine if
| people disagree.
| idontpost wrote:
| [dead]
| kipchak wrote:
| It's hard to say how effective it is but an aspect of that
| sort of punishment is general deterrence which became more
| common versus reformation approaches in the 80s and 90s,
| where the intent is to increase the perceived risk of the
| crime. I think generally more approach on reformative
| punishment in the US would be good, but there also still
| examples where deterrence is useful.
|
| One more recent example is DUI enforcement and license
| revocation,[1] or tax evasion jail time. The goal isn't
| entirely to reform those who commit the crime, or keep them
| from being able to commit further crimes, but to increase
| the percentage of people not committing crimes by changing
| the perceived risk to reward ratio.
|
| [1]https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/809950.pdf
| hypeit wrote:
| The threat of punishment doesn't stop people from committing
| violent crime. Even if you totally eliminated the threat of
| prison, the actual threat of committing violent crime is that
| someone will retaliate/defend themselves against you. If
| you're willing to put your life on the line to rob someone,
| whether or not you might get put in jail isn't even going to
| register.
|
| Non-violent and financial crime is a different story. SBF
| should go to prison for life and maybe that _would_ dissuade
| others from trying to pull of scams of this scale. Every
| politician who accepted money from SBF should also go to
| prison if they don 't return 100% of the money given to them.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| > SBF should go to prison for life
|
| I sincerely believe in the death penalty in cases where
| more than $1 million is stolen. Let's put the fear of god
| into the white collar business criminals and then maybe
| they'll rethink things.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I believe in linear sentencing. Set some base level. Like
| minimum wage, multiply by 8. And for each such value add
| day to sentence.
|
| If you reach some reasonable total let's say 100 years
| just do death penalty then.
| tombert wrote:
| I'm very very broadly against the death penalty even in
| the worst of cases, but even entertaining what you
| suggest, I certainly think that a million is pretty low
| to be executed for.
|
| I'm not even sure how you'd fully quantify that; suppose
| I had a flash drive with a crypto wallet worth two
| million bucks in my backpack, and then when I get up to
| go to the bathroom someone steals my backpack.
|
| Now, technically this person stole "more than a million
| dollars", but I don't think you'd suggest we dust off the
| gallows just for snatching a backpack would you?
| phone8675309 wrote:
| I had hoped that it would be clear from context that I'm
| talking about someone who commits financial fraud, not
| just someone stealing a backpack, but if that was not
| clear then that is on me.
|
| Disagree on $1 million being a low threshold. There are
| fraud operations out there that steal $10k from one
| pensioner and $50K from another that in aggregate hit $1
| million. I think everyone involved in the fraud end of
| something like that deserves to forfeit their lives.
| tombert wrote:
| I mean, I was being deliberately obtuse on it to be fair!
|
| While I could see myself getting onboard with locking
| these fraudsters up for the rest of their lives, I think
| our disagreement stems from the fact that I think
| actually executing people should be reserved for
| explicitly violent crimes, if at all. As stated, I'm
| broadly against the death penalty in any case, but I'm
| more amenable to it in regards as a direct means of
| public safety from violence.
| aeneasmackenzie wrote:
| Statutes as harsh as this have been tried but were
| repealed for unspecified reasons (Draco's laws in Athens)
| or because juries wouldn't convict in death penalty cases
| very often (England's Bloody Code).
| tombert wrote:
| Yeah, I think I saw in a video or something where you
| used to be able to be hanged for forgery, which basically
| led to no one ever being convicted of forgery because
| people didn't feel like the punishment really fit the
| crime.
| gmerc wrote:
| That's an awfully certain statement. I don't know man, it
| seem likely that some people will be dissuaded from
| pursuing non passion driven violent crime by appropriate
| risk of punishment.
|
| Sounds like a perfect solution fallacy.
| hypeit wrote:
| It's not a perfect solution but it's also not believable
| that what's stopping people from committing violence is
| the law and not the violence itself. If you're willing to
| commit premeditated violence, you're already far beyond
| the influence of the law.
|
| If someone carjacks a car they are willing to accept the
| risk that the person they're robbing may have a gun. They
| are literally willing to put their life at risk,
| something only someone with nothing to lose would do. Do
| think maybe getting caught by the police and spending 10
| years in prison is as big of a threat to this person as
| being shot and killed (a risk they've already decided to
| take)?
| mef wrote:
| have you considered that a person who is in a life
| situation where turning to crime becomes a viable option
| is perhaps underestimating the risk and negative impact
| of either situation?
| hypeit wrote:
| In that case the threat of prison is also not a
| deterrent.
| mef wrote:
| Or, both are deterrents but one or both can be weaker
| than the other depending on the perceived risk by the
| person committing the crime. Having multiple deterrents
| should be a greater deterrent as a whole across the
| average of potential criminals.
| tombert wrote:
| I think I more or less agree, except for this:
|
| > Every politician who accepted money from SBF should also
| go to prison if they don't return 100% of the money given
| to them.
|
| Even if they surrendered all the money given to them, and
| lets assume they even paid interest and another fine on top
| of that, I'm not sure they should be allowed to be
| politicians anymore.
|
| Politicians are very specifically a "trust" job. The fact
| that they _even took_ the money signals that they were
| receptive to bribes, and I think should signal to the
| courts that they cannot be trusted to represent the will of
| their voters. Just because bribes and lobbying are
| commonplace right now doesn 't mean they should be.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| The threat of punishment is broadly ineffective at
| preventing violent crimes that arise from inflamed tempers
| or insanity, mental spaces in which people do not respond
| rationally to incentives and punishments.
|
| However, incarceration incapacitates convicts and prevents
| them from being able to re-victimize the public for the
| duration of their incarceration. Locking up serial killers
| is a good idea, not because it dissuades other would-be
| serial killers (it probably doesn't) but rather because a
| serial killer who's locked up in a cell is a serial killer
| everybody else doesn't have to worry about.
|
| (Furthermore, the threat of punishment _probably does_
| dissuade the kind of murders that might be committed in
| 'cold blood' by rational people. For instance, it may be
| easier for a robber to shoot everybody in the jewelry store
| than to waste time with crowd control, but doing the
| robbery nonviolently is incentivized by the severe
| penalties for mass murder.)
| hypeit wrote:
| I agree that this is a more legitimate reason to put
| people in prison, but I think it needs to be very
| selective to be effective. Serial killers need to be
| taken out of circulation but drug offenders do not imo.
| Often you turn people into an even deeper life of crime
| after removing them from society, putting them in
| psychologically damaging situations and exposing them to
| intensified organized crime that exists in prison. Not to
| mention any collateral damage such as the offender's
| family who may now also suffer and be drawn more towards
| conditions that would breed crime.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| With nonviolent crimes, such as drug abuse and financial
| crimes, I think the utility of incarceration depends on
| the degree to which the criminal might still be hurting
| society in nonviolent ways which would be prevented by
| incarceration. Maybe drug abuse is itself a victimless
| crime (I think there's room to disagree fwiw), in which
| case incapacitation via incarceration wouldn't be useful.
|
| But I think you can't make that claim about financial
| criminals like Bankman-Fried or Bernie Madoff; these were
| not victimless crimes. They victimized many people,
| therefore putting them in prison for the rest of their
| lives is a fairly straight forward way of making sure
| they'll never get the opportunity to do it again.
|
| > _Not to mention any collateral damage such as the
| offender 's family who may now also suffer and be drawn
| more towards conditions that would breed crime._
|
| Particularly in the case of these two men, the damage to
| the offenders family is completely irrelevant; their
| families are wealthy and are probably beneficiaries of
| the crimes anyway, so screw their feelings. And it's not
| like Bankman-Fried has a young son that will grow up to
| be a criminal because his daddy is in prison. Elizabeth
| Holmes has some kids but I'm confident they'll be fine
| with their mother in prison; their father's family has
| plenty of resources to raise them properly. And what of
| the children of the victims of white collar crime, who
| will grow up poorer because their parents were scammed?
| This 'family impact' angle of objection to imprisonment
| for white collar crimes isn't very persuasive.
| kosievdmerwe wrote:
| I'm also starting to think that people underplay the
| devastation financial crimes cause relative to physical
| violence. People in a very real sense "eat money".
|
| If you steal someone's life savings you've harmed them
| way worse than just giving them a beating. And investment
| fraudsters tend to also have a lot of victims.
|
| That's never mind the physical harm that results from the
| stress of losing your life savings, including substance
| abuse and in extreme cases suicide.
| hypeit wrote:
| I agree, if you see up thread I said SBF should go to
| prison for life.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Fundamentally if you're going to have laws, and for the
| laws to mean anything, there has to be a consequence for
| violating them. There are maybe three ways to do this:
| financial penalties (fines), community service or some
| other sort of forced labor/obligations, or incarceration.
|
| If you're not willing to do these things, you should just
| do away with the law in question. Otherwise you reduce
| the respect and confidence people have for that law, and
| by extension all law.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Do you think punishment is an ineffective deterrent?
| tombert wrote:
| I do not think punishment is a good deterrent, no; I think
| the data more or less says that as well. If you look at
| Scandinavia, where they generally have a much higher emphasis
| on reform instead of "punishment for punishment's sake", and
| they also have a substantially lower recidivism rate compared
| to the US.
|
| Now obviously, I'll fully acknowledge that it's not
| completely apples to apples; there almost certainly a million
| differences between the US and Scandinavia that contribute to
| differences in crime statistics, but I think it does
| demonstrate that reducing emphasis on punishment doesn't turn
| the world into this post apocalyptic dystopia.
| throttlebody wrote:
| You better have another look a the Swedish gang murder
| rate, it's staggering (in Swedish terms). The world is
| changing.....
| InitialLastName wrote:
| From [0]:
|
| > More than 60 people died in shootings last year in
| Sweden, the highest figure on record.
|
| This may be a lot of people for Sweden (~0.5 death per
| ~100K people); it's not a lot of people in the general
| sense. Per [1], 19,000 people died from gun homicides in
| the US in the same year (5 per 100K people). Not exactly
| a sign that Sweden's system is failing relative to the
| US.
|
| [0] https://apnews.com/article/sweden-shooting-explosion-
| deadlie...
|
| [1] https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2023/cdc-provisional-
| data-gun-s...
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| probably have to look at the first derivative or second
| derivative of murders wrt time to get a sense for how
| people perceive the change?
| Kiro wrote:
| I can assure you that every single Swede agrees that it's
| failing. People are horrified at what's happening.
|
| Anyway, bringing up Scandinavia as one unit doesn't work
| anymore when there's such a big difference between Sweden
| and for example Norway where restorative justice is still
| successful.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Can someone knowledgable chime in with the _realistic_ possible
| penalty for SBF? The news is saying "over 100 years" which I
| assume has only a tenuous relationship with reality.
| jandrese wrote:
| I assume that is just the journalist summing up all of the
| possible maximum sentences as they usually do.
|
| It's really hard to say. On one hand he's a privileged white
| guy. On the other he stole from a lot of rich people. Bernie
| Madoff was sentenced to 150 years, but in reality anything over
| 20 was a life sentence for him. I'm kind of expecting the court
| to throw the book at SBF simply because he was so brazen about
| it. When you get that far out of line people want to make an
| example out of you.
| youmeantj wrote:
| [flagged]
| rsynnott wrote:
| "Conrad Black. The first rich person to go to prison in 300
| years."
|
| But yes. If you're a rich guy, best to avoid stealing from
| other rich people; it does seem to be one of the few things
| that results in them going to prison.
| aeneasmackenzie wrote:
| Will Sam "Bank Fraud Man" be punished for fraud? Could go
| either way. Adam "New Man" got away clean.
| [deleted]
| adamnemecek wrote:
| Adam Neumann didn't commit outright fraud.
| nradov wrote:
| Adam Neumann of WeWork committed fraud the smart way. He told
| qualified investors exactly how he was going to cheat them,
| and then got them to sign binding contracts agreeing to be
| cheated. That was kind of slimy and cynical behavior, but it
| wasn't a criminal offense under US federal fraud statutes.
| gizmo wrote:
| There is no realistic estimate at this point because we don't
| know how strong the prosecutor's case is. The prosecutors might
| even mishandle evidence and botch the case. Insider testimony
| might not hold up to cross examination. SBF might succeed in
| arguing that he acted in good faith throughout. There's no
| predicting how this will play out.
|
| High profile trials (Musk, Trump, OJ Simpson, Madoff) are high
| variance in outcome.
| hcks wrote:
| Metaculus currently gives 165 months with a very flat
| distribution https://www.metaculus.com/questions/13532/sbf-
| prison-sentenc...
| sdwr wrote:
| (After looking at the prediction), 15 years feels very
| reasonable. Like, it's taking away the rest of the prime of
| his life, which is terrible, but there's still light at the
| end of the tunnel.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > it's taking away the rest of the prime of his life
|
| Oh man, that hurts, ha! In 15 years he'll still be younger
| than I am today. I know I'm old, but still, ouch.
| artursapek wrote:
| Just be glad you didn't spend those years in a prison
| cell :-D
| wmf wrote:
| Of course EAs are now betting on their messiah's prison
| sentence.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| I associate prediction markets with libertarian economists,
| EAs just happen to like them too.
| badrequest wrote:
| He bamboozled as much money from rich people as he did from
| poors, they're throwing the book at him.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| Both prosecutors and journalists tend to sum up the maximum
| sentence for each charge as though these are served serially,
| when in reality they're usually served in parallel. In this
| case I'd put the 95% confidence bracket at 12-20 years.
| spiderice wrote:
| Why such high confidence? Especially when Madoff got 150
| years. Just because of the difference in scale?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Can't speak for GP, but I recall that Elizabeth Holmes had
| a fairly high prediction, even by people who were using the
| federal guidelines. More than a few people with plausible
| explanations said she'd be looking at life. But she got
| about 10 years.
| serjester wrote:
| Martin Shkreli (also went through the New York district court)
| put together a pretty informative video on it.
|
| It's pretty cut and dry - he's looking at about 45 points on
| the sentencing table. Not too long ago these were mandatory
| guidelines and as a result he'd be looking at life in prison.
|
| Now a days these are recommendations and since he got pretty
| lucky with the judge they'll likely discount it 50ish %. So
| realistically he's looking at 20 years and with good behaviour
| he'll be out in 10.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ivqzyjfHG0
| mandevil wrote:
| It is very difficult to get out of a federal sentence without
| serving at least 85% of it. That's with good-behavior
| credits.
| wanderingstan wrote:
| I believe these are Federal charges, so there is no parole,
| thus no big reduction for good behavior. (Federal parole was
| eliminated in the 1980s)
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Bernie Madoff got 150 years for various crimes related to his
| ponzi scheme.
| perihelions wrote:
| Every competent lawyer I've seen interviewed in newspapers
| hedges with something like "it's hard to predict / lots of
| potential factors". One thing's clear, is that the scale of
| SBF's crimes max out the offense level of the federal
| sentencing guidelines. So there's no _upper limit_ to the
| sentence: it 's rather a question of how many mitigating
| factors can be found to push things downwards.
|
| e.g.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/05/sam-bankman-fried-could-face...
| thucydides wrote:
| Over 100 years is entirely possible in this case. Under the
| Federal Sentencing Guidelines and precedent in the 2nd Circuit,
| the recommended total sentence will be stacked consecutively
| because SBF's "offense level" counsels life in prison. Here's
| the calculation.
|
| A. Max sentence:
|
| Wire fraud on customers (20 years max) + conspiracy to commit
| same (20) + wire fraud on Alameda lenders (20) + conspiracy for
| same (20) + conspiracy securities fraud on FTX investors (20) +
| conspiracy commodities fraud (25) + conspiracy money laundering
| (20).
|
| 145 years total possible
|
| B. Determine SBF's offense level under the Federal Sentencing
| Guidelines, SS2B1.1 (fraud): See
| https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/guidelines-manu...
| and Ctrl+F for "2B1.1" to ride along:
|
| Base offense level (7 levels) + Greater than $550,000,000 loss
| (30 levels) + Resulted in substantial financial hardship to 25
| or more victims (6 levels) + Offense otherwise involved
| sophisticated means (2 levels) + Defendant derived more than
| $1mm in gross receipts from one or more financial institutions
| (2 levels, maximum, due to a cap from earlier calculation) +
| Violation of securities / commodities law and defendant was
| "associated with a broker or dealer" or officer/director of a
| "futures commission merchant" (4 levels)
|
| 51 levels
|
| C. Determine the Guideline sentencing range. See
| https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/guidelines-manu...
|
| x axis: no criminal history. y axis, we calculated 51 levels.
|
| The Guidelines therefore counsel life in prison.
|
| D. Calculate sentence
|
| The maximum sentence for each count is between 20-25 years.
| Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines SS 5G1.2(d) and Second
| Circuit precedent, sentences will be stacked consecutively "to
| produce a combined sentence equal to the total punishment."
| United States v. Evans, 352 F.3d 65 (2d Cir. 2003). In our
| scenario, that would be 145 years. This is the same legal
| reasoning used in stacking Bernie Madoff's sentences in the
| same federal district court, by the way.
|
| E. Judge chooses sentence. He can depart downward from the
| Guidelines
|
| Appeals courts are deferential to trial court choices in
| sentencing, so Judge Kaplan will have substantial latitude in
| choosing a sentence. That said, a judge may not be too
| favorably disposed to a defendant who stole billions of dollars
| from over 1 million customers, most of whom were ordinary
| people; who used Tom Brady, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Shaq, and
| Larry David as unwitting pawns; who advertised his scam in the
| Super Bowl and splashed its name on an arena; who used customer
| money to buy lavish real estate in the Bahamas, purchase favor
| from politicians, and make reckless leveraged bets
| vkou wrote:
| > C. Determine the Guideline sentencing range. See
| https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/guidelines-
| manu...
|
| Given that half of the chart is taken up by >75-year
| sentences, with some of them in the 200s and 300s, before
| hitting life, federal prosecutors seem to be a lot more
| confident in the miracles possible in the federal prison
| medical system than I am.
| [deleted]
| kosievdmerwe wrote:
| The unit is months not years (as I also thought until I
| watched Shkreli's video.)
| didntknowya wrote:
| really depends more on how many poor people he affected (slap
| on the wrist) vs rich people (longer jail time)
| jcranmer wrote:
| You can plug facts of the case into a sentencing calculator
| like https://www.sentencing.us/ to estimate sentencing
| guidelines. Sentencing guidelines generally work by look at
| each offense, compute an "offense level" based on facts of that
| offense, take the maximum of all offenses [1], and then combine
| that with a criminal history to yield a range.
|
| I don't know enough of the details to plug it in to get an
| accurate estimate, but I'm pretty sure he managed to hit the
| maximum fraud offense level, at which point I'm getting an
| offense level of 40, which for a first time offender, is 24-30
| years. Which is high enough that other factors (such as maximum
| sentences for crimes) are going to come into play, but it does
| strongly suggest that realistic prison time is going to be
| involve decades.
|
| [1] This isn't entirely accurate, but maximum is a more
| accurate estimate than adding them all up. You actually group
| offenses by relatedness, and max within groups and sum the
| various groups, but for most practical purposes, there's only
| one group of offenses.
| rurcliped wrote:
| Suppose you have office space in the jail, and give him (or
| anyone else) the opportunity to apply for remote jobs at anyplace
| willing to hire him - with the caveat that he loses office access
| unless he demonstrates that he's maximizing his potential to earn
| money, all of which will go directly to compensating victims.
| (Assume that he can't have Zoom calls with arbitrary colleagues
| of his choice. He can only have Zoom calls with Bill Lumbergh.)
| chollida1 wrote:
| One thing that the financial press is looking at is where the
| courts draw the line between incompetence and outright fraud.
|
| Everyone agrees that FTX funneled money from FTX customers
| accounts to Alemada. The government is claiming this is fraud,
| SBF is claiming it was just allowing Alemeda to have more
| leverage than other clients.
|
| Everyone agrees that FTX gave SBF's parents $30M in real estate.
| The government is claiming this was fraud, SBF is claiming that
| it was just payment for work done by his parents for FTX.
|
| Everyone agrees that a large part of Alemeda's balance sheet were
| coins that only had value because they held almost all of them
| and only they transacted in them, thereby allowing them to keep
| the price high. The government claims this is accounting fraud
| and SBF claims this was just a bad marking of their price.
|
| Everyone agrees that FTX bought around $100 million in Bahamian
| realestate. The government says this was stealing from FTX's
| customers, while SBF is claiming this was just to house FTX
| employees.
|
| Everyone agrees that FTX paid $100's of millions to celebrity
| endorsers and arena naming deals. The government claims the
| source of these funds were customers money. SBF claims that both
| FTX's own cash and customers funds were just one big pool that he
| just didn't have enough accounting and risk management rules
| enforced on that large pool of resources to know that FTX ran out
| of money and he was using customers funds to buy things.
|
| I'm not an expert in case law but one thing that stand out to me
| is just how many of SBF's "friends" and partners have fully
| turned on him and will testify against him. Caroline Ellison, the
| CEO of Alameda, Gary Wang, the CTO of FTX and Nishad Singh, FTX'
| engineering director have all signed cooperation agreements.
|
| Also rumours are that SBF will testify, which short of Trump
| testifying , seems like the worst possible person to take the
| stand.
|
| The winners in this will be the bankruptcy lawyers and people who
| had cash on had to buy FTX customer claims for 20-30% on the
| dollar. I think funds that had the forsight to buy these claims
| and create a side car for their investment will do very well.
|
| The yield on this trade though will be determined mostly by the
| recovery rate and probably more so by the time it takes the
| lawyers to pay out claims as I've never met a bankruptcy lawyer
| who was in a hurry to part with the cash and lucrative billing
| rates they make.
|
| One other thing i'm watching but not related to the trials is how
| far back FTX's bankruptcy lawyers go after people who withdrew
| money from FTX.
|
| With Maddoff the bankruptcy lawyers went after anyone who took
| money out going back many years. Supposedly there were a few
| larger hedge funds who took money out of FTX weeks before it went
| under and stopped withdrawls. There is plenty of precedence for
| the trustees to go after those funds to ask for the withdrawls
| back.
| saghm wrote:
| Even if it all just was extraordinary incompetence, it doesn't
| seem like it would set a good precedent for that to be a
| successful defense. If this works, it seems like we'd see a lot
| more places purposely accounting for things poorly because
| there's a precedent that they can get away with it by saying
| they didn't know any better...
| taeric wrote:
| As soon as you add "purposely" to the mix, you clearly moved
| over into fraud...
|
| I think you are ultimately correct that extraordinary
| incompetence would still be some crime. Question does seem
| legitimate that it isn't necessarily fraud?
| saghm wrote:
| My point is that if accidental incompetence is allowed but
| purposeful incompetence isn't, it becomes makes it a goal
| to try to seem genuinely incompetent, which seems like a
| bad thing
| taeric wrote:
| I can kind of see the hazard, if I squint. But that would
| still be a crime, in a lot of cases. And if you look
| incompetent, there are serious questions to ask on why
| you are getting backing.
|
| Consider, if a bus system lets a genuinely incompetent
| driver on the street, there are all sorts of fines they
| will face. Rightfully so. Same for a hospital that has a
| genuinely incompetent doctor.
|
| Now, if you are incompetent at things that are not your
| core competency, things are different. But, in general,
| incompetency at the level we are looking at here should
| raise as many questions on why so many others ignored red
| flags.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Manslaughter is not murder, but it's still a crime.
| Executives are often held to the "knew or should have
| known" standard. So, yes, in his position, extraordinary
| incompetence is still a crime.
| lancesells wrote:
| Before I really knew who this person was I remember him
| making news by being on a podcast basically saying it's all
| made up and a ponzi scheme. I could be remembering it wrong
| but everything I've read since then seems criminal.
| tekla wrote:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-25/sam-
| bankm...
| wmf wrote:
| https://archive.ph/fGLat#40%
| klenwell wrote:
| > Everyone agrees that FTX paid $100's of millions to celebrity
| endorsers and arena naming deals.
|
| Don't forget the fortune cookies. I know that I and some others
| on HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33599123) never
| will.
| lbwtaylor wrote:
| I think this is an interesting analysis. My speculation is that
| the evidence will show much more intent than expected. I think
| the cooperation agreements are reflective of that and suggest
| those folks knew what they were doing wasn't right.
|
| Edit: I am skeptical that that significant money will be
| recovered. Madoff ran a rather simple scheme where he skimmed
| money for himself and to pay earlier investors. I don't believe
| he actually lost that much money, just never made anywhere near
| the paper returns. I think FTX actually lost a lot of real
| money, but I am not that close to the facts.
| PumpkinSpice wrote:
| You see a lot of "knew or should have known" in indictments of
| professionals who do sketchy things. I don't think you can hide
| behind gross incompetence in situations like that.
| blitzar wrote:
| One other thing I'm watching is for someone to ask where Former
| Alameda CEO Samuel Trabucco is.
| mongol wrote:
| Why is it bad to testify in your own case? I have heard this
| from time to time but have not understood it. Is it not your
| chance to tell it like it is?
| recursivecaveat wrote:
| In general it's hard for the prosecution to bring up evidence
| of prior, unrelated convictions or wrongdoing. If you take
| the stand they are allowed to bring it up to impune your
| credibility as a witness though. Doesn't really apply to SBF,
| but it's an additional reason to those others have stated for
| anybody with a criminal past.
| rconti wrote:
| The burden of proof is on the prosecution. If they can't
| prove that you did something wrong, you are more likely to
| get off.
|
| Your lawyers can poke holes in the prosecution's case ("cast
| doubt" on it). Make it look like a weak case.
|
| Getting on the stand and explaining an alternate timeline
| actually give the prosecution MORE evidence, from the horse's
| mouth. They can find new things you did wrong, they can find
| inconsistencies in your story, inconsistencies between what
| you said today and what you said last week. You're likely to
| commit perjury.
|
| You're not expected to convince the jury of an alternate
| timeline, you just need them to NOT believe the very specific
| one the prosecution lays out.
| shapefrog wrote:
| It is a bit like the "Don't Talk to the Police" meme
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36371237
| achenet wrote:
| If you're not very charismatic, or rather, very not
| charismatic, you can undermine your own defense.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Also the prosecution then has the ability to rain questions
| on you.
|
| When you are super guilty, that typically doesn't go well.
| SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
| Yep. They _will_ ask some questions they can prove the
| answers to, and those will usually be the ones that
| implicate you. If you lie, they 'll call all your other
| testimony into question, as well as get you at least one
| perjury charge! If you don't lie, you admitted to the
| crime you committed, and could have saved a lot of hassle
| by pleading guilty to begin with. If you plead the 5th,
| it's officially the same as if you'd never testified to
| begin with, but juries may still be biased to see that as
| you attempting to hide something you're guilty about.
| Better to avoid testifying at all.
| [deleted]
| wmf wrote:
| It's bad for SBF to testify because he's such a weird person.
| If he can't present himself sympathetically the jury may
| interpret that as lack of remorse.
| kosievdmerwe wrote:
| Yeah it'd be a very bad idea for him to get up on the
| stand, but I'm putting large odds on it happening despite
| his lawyers' warnings.
|
| But who knows, maybe having his bail revoked gave him some
| perspective of how seriously he should take this and that
| he isn't a legal genius.
| taeric wrote:
| My understanding is that, in general, you don't want to
| testify period. Even just being called as a witness is a
| difficult thing to do, as you are entering an arena that you
| are almost certainly not practiced at. You will slip up and
| say some things wrong. And you will have a hard time keeping
| your composure and actually connecting with the attorneys,
| judge, and jury.
|
| For a witness, this really just means more stress than you
| were likely expecting going into the process. For someone
| actually involved in the trial, I imagine it is everything
| multiplied.
| grey-area wrote:
| The choice is not between incompetence and fraud, much as SBF
| would like you to think so.
|
| A company giving money to the parents of the owner is fraud.
|
| A company giving money to another company owned by the owner
| when not in their interests to do so is fraud.
|
| A company giving customer funds out as loans is fraud.
|
| Incompetence is not an excuse and never has been, just as
| ignorance of the law is not an excuse.
| chollida1 wrote:
| Most of what you wrote, I agree with but this is wrong
|
| > A company giving customer funds out as loans is fraud.
|
| No, this alone is no where near enough for fraud.
|
| Banks do this all the time. So does anyone company that
| issues gift cards.
| grey-area wrote:
| They're not supposed to co-mingle client money and company
| money. They did that with no controls and used it for all
| sorts of things without the permission of their clients,
| who thought it was invested in very specific assets. They
| are an exchange letting people buy crypto assets.
|
| Not sure on the rules for banks but FTX was not a regulated
| bank!
| kpaxstaxes wrote:
| This is absolutely fraud.
|
| FTX was not a bank, it was an exchange. People were not
| giving FTX money to lend out to others in exchange for
| interest (as they would a bank). People were buying
| products (cryptocurrencies) from FTX that FTX agreed to
| hold on their behalf. FTX doing anything with these assets
| other than holding them on behalf of customers is fraud.
|
| FTX's own Terms of Service explicitly said it was not
| permitted to lend out customer funds.
|
| SBF himself repeatedly stated that FTX did not lend out
| customer funds.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _People were not giving FTX money to lend out to others
| in exchange for interest_
|
| Depending on state law, if you put down a deposit for
| _e.g._ flowers, the florist is free to spend the cash
| however they see fit, including loaning it out to
| someone. Lending customer funds _per se_ does not prove
| fraud. Bankman-Fried lying about it does.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| Sorry, was FTX a florist? I'm confused by your remark.
| Can you show some evidence that FTX was selling flowers,
| and that they had been using customer deposits for
| flowers on business expenses?
| quadcore wrote:
| _Bankman-Fried lying about it does._
|
| Which I understand as, it's gota be determined the extent
| of the lying to determine the extent of the fraud ; some
| you-didnt-read-the-contract-well-enough responsability
| may incumb on the customer(s).
|
| _holding assets on their customers ' behalf_
|
| Who said he was, him?
|
| Of course Im playing devil's advocate here to illustrate
| the logic of the law as presented by our friend here.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| It's an analogy. Lending out--or even spending on working
| capital--customer deposits isn't necessarily illegal. The
| context is what makes it fraud or business as usual.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| And the context is that FTX is not taking deposits for
| flowers, they are purchasing and holding assets on their
| customers' behalf, so your florist analogy makes
| absolutely no sense.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _they are purchasing and holding assets on their
| customers ' behalf, so your florist analogy makes
| absolutely no sense_
|
| No, they were accepting customers' cash in exchange for
| something undefined. Crypto being unregulated, we can
| conclusively say that something was _not_ "purchasing and
| holding assets on their customers' behalf."
|
| FTX is, in many respects, more like a florist than a
| financial firm. Certainly for purposes of this case. (My
| florist's books are better organized.)
| bumby wrote:
| The law makes a distinction between "misrepresentation of
| material fact" and fraud, though. Fraud means knowingly
| making a misrepresentation of material fact.
| grey-area wrote:
| Something like pretending your parents were employees for
| example?
| bumby wrote:
| It depends on the specifics. If they are listed on
| payroll, that might be not be neither a misrepresentation
| or fraud. If you had good reason to believe they were
| hired, but weren't, I'd imagine that would land as an
| honest misrepresentation. If you knowingly "pretended"
| they were employees but they weren't, that's probably
| closer to fraud.
|
| Do you know the particulars in this case? It doesn't look
| like the article covers that specific aspect and I'm not
| terribly familiar with this case.
| shapefrog wrote:
| None of these things are fraud - ignorance of the law is not
| an excuse.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| "A company giving customer funds out as loans is fraud."
|
| This is what banks do though, no?
| wmf wrote:
| Banks are fractional reserve but brokers like FTX are full
| reserve.
| shapefrog wrote:
| > brokers like FTX
|
| FTX (excluding FTX USA co) were unregulated - they were
| not a bank or broker just a plain old LLC.
| vkou wrote:
| Banks have to follow various rules when they do it, and if
| they don't follow them, executives go to prison.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| Was FTX a bank? Can you show marketing materials or any
| documentation indicating that FTX was a bank?
| Biologist123 wrote:
| I've really come to doubt human ability to exercise free will in
| all but the rarest of cases. I wonder if SBF really had a moment
| where a stop/go decision was meaningfully available to him. If
| we're all automatons, what's the point of prison?
|
| I've been reading Michael Lewis' account of SBF: he genuinely
| sounds unhinged.
| kryptiskt wrote:
| We're even less kind to malfunctioning machinery than bad
| humans, so I don't think being treated as an automaton sounds
| like a desirable outcome for a criminal.
| timfsu wrote:
| Are you saying you don't think deterrence works? I am curious
| what you're learning about SBF though.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| I don't think the courts recognize determinism.
|
| It sucks that once you are in too deep, it's hard to stop, but
| you always had the option not to take the first step.
| strangattractor wrote:
| Wouldn't being "automatons" be a good argument for prisons? If
| people's behavior is automatic then removing them from the rest
| of us seems like the only solution. If you believe in
| redemption, rehabilitation and change then a complicated system
| like we have seems inevitable.
|
| Sorry I've been binging "Inside the Worlds Toughest Prisons"
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6322264/
| austinprete wrote:
| If we're all automatons, there's no _point_ in prison, but it
| also doesn't matter.
|
| It's just something we (automatically) place certain people in
| so they don't (automatically) perform actions that society as a
| whole (automatically) disagrees with.
|
| But there's no point arguing it because in your hypothetical
| free will-less world we don't have a choice in the matter. But
| also we might argue it anyway because we don't have a choice
| not to :)
| bloppe wrote:
| It really doesn't matter if free will exists (however you want
| to define it). Harming others for personal gain must be
| punished, otherwise society breaks down.
| rendall wrote:
| Patrick Boyle lays out the evidence that SBF's parents were
| intimately involved in the scam and likely attempted to hide
| assets. If true, they should be tried as well:
| https://youtu.be/gLvOT2AldwM?si=QCQv4j1VUrDX_cyf
| greenyoda wrote:
| Thanks, this was a very good analysis of the roles of SBF's
| parents.
|
| Here's a direct link to the FTX debtors complaint against the
| parents (PDF):
|
| https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.deb.188...
|
| The Preliminary Statement begins with:
|
| > _This action seeks to recover millions of dollars in
| fraudulently transferred and misappropriated funds from the
| parents of FTX Founder Samuel Bankman-Fried ("Bankman- Fried"):
| his father, Defendant Allan Joseph Bankman ("Bankman"), and his
| mother, Defendant Barbara Fried ("Fried"). As Bankman-Fried's
| parents, Bankman and Fried exploited their access and influence
| within the FTX enterprise to enrich themselves, directly and
| indirectly, by millions of dollars, and knowingly at the
| expense of the debtors in these Chapter 11 Cases (the "Debtors"
| or the "FTX Group") and their creditors._
| 3327 wrote:
| [dead]
| amanj41 wrote:
| The email from Sam's dad to Sam whining about his 200k salary
| was disturbing. It's no surprise that Sam ended up the way he
| did
| 71a54xd wrote:
| His brother briefly worked at Jane Street. Right out of
| college he made $300k, next year $600k - his bosses liked his
| perf and said he'd be on track to make $5-7M per year if he
| stayed on for another 2-4 years.
|
| Supposedly he still felt inadequate and hated his life...
| nequo wrote:
| Those numbers are surprising. Do you have a source for
| them?
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