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Bankman-Fried's Shrinking ‘$250M Bond’

coindesk.com

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Re: Bankman-Fried's Shrinking ‘$250M Bond’

#31

Post by dragonwriter »

nkurz wrote: post #2

I think this article is "directionally correct", but wrong (or at least misleading) about some key details. > Instead, Bankman-Fried’s parents promised to pledge their Palo Alto, California, home as collateral. The Palo Alto home is rumored to be worth $4 million. And that is the full extent of the collateral pledged to guarantee the $250 million bond. No other collateral was posted or promised. The first couple sent…

> Which is to say, at least according to the published agreement, it is not true that "no other collateral was posted or agreed to".

This is wrong, a signed surety bond is not collateral, its a binding commitment to liability. Security/collateral for that liability is a separate thing, abd the only security provided is the house.

OTOH, federal law allows fully unsecured, personal bond of the accused if the jidge thinks it is sufficient, so having any security or surety (where this agreement has both) is optional, so really this just seems to be a bunch of people who don’t know how federal bail works being shocked not by something out of norms, but because their understanding of the norms is inaccurate.

Re: Bankman-Fried's Shrinking ‘$250M Bond’

#32

Post by moralestapia »

"Yes, you read that right. Bankman-Fried walked out of court a free man by signing a piece of paper where he promised to pay the court $250 million if he decides to flee to another country with no extradition. This, of course, is totally absurd."

Whew! This ought to piss off a LOT of people who couldn't afford to pay bails in the range of 1,000s-10,000s of dollars.

250M on a written IOU with (almost) no collateral to back it up, that's insane.

Re: Bankman-Fried's Shrinking ‘$250M Bond’

#33

Post by maxbond »

BobbyJo wrote: post #29
maxbond wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you believe he's guilty beyond a shadow of doubt, it shouldn't disturb you that he's on house arrest instead of in prison. His trial will last a year or two, his sentence probably be 10 to life (probably closer to the "life").

Why not? He did plenty more harm to plenty more people than many others who had to wait in jail for their trial. I think it's perfectly rational to be upset that someone who destroyed billions in wealth is treated more kindly by the justice system than than people who've done far less damage.

I agree the inequity of the justice system is terrible. I disagree with what I perceive as calls for his head.

Re: Bankman-Fried's Shrinking ‘$250M Bond’

#34

Post by qeternity »

sschueller wrote: post #26
georgeecollins wrote: post #6

For anyone who is not aware, in the US you sometimes have to put up bail money to get out of jail because you are a flight risk or there is a danger you will commit further crimes (assuming you are guilty which is at that point unproven). There are services that do this as a bond, called a bail bond. You typically don't put up the full amount, maybe 5-10%. The rest of the risk of you not showing up for your trial is…

So you pay the bondsman $25 million which you don't get back and he puts up the rest in case you do flee? Wouldn't it be better then to pay the $250 million (if you have it) since you will get all of it back when you show up in court?

> (if you have it)

Now you understand what business bail bondsman are actually in.

Re: Bankman-Fried's Shrinking ‘$250M Bond’

#35

Post by dragonwriter »

moralestapia wrote: post #8
nkurz wrote: post #2

I think this article is "directionally correct", but wrong (or at least misleading) about some key details. > Instead, Bankman-Fried’s parents promised to pledge their Palo Alto, California, home as collateral. The Palo Alto home is rumored to be worth $4 million. And that is the full extent of the collateral pledged to guarantee the $250 million bond. No other collateral was posted or promised. The first couple sent…

What a weird argument you're making, >2 non-parent sureties to sign bonds in lesser amounts to be agreed to I'll be extremely generous and interpret that as two bonds worth 3.99...M each or the absolute max. value that is less than the 4M house. Would you extend a 250M credit to someone who offers you 11.8M in illiquid assets? Also, they happen to be the parents of one of the biggest fraudsters in recent years ... Co…

> Would you extend a 250M credit to someone who offers you 11.8M in illiquid assets?

The Court is not extending $250M of credit based on the collateral of the house.

The Court is assessing that the combination of the $250M penalty, the security given in the form of the claim on the house, the particular full sureties on the hook, the additional partial sureties on the hook for a lesser amount, and the nonfinancial conditions of bail are sufficient to adequately guarantee SBFs appearance (in part, based on the prosecution also accepting that.)

Re: Bankman-Fried's Shrinking ‘$250M Bond’

#36

Post by itslennysfault »

nkurz wrote: post #2

I think this article is "directionally correct", but wrong (or at least misleading) about some key details. > Instead, Bankman-Fried’s parents promised to pledge their Palo Alto, California, home as collateral. The Palo Alto home is rumored to be worth $4 million. And that is the full extent of the collateral pledged to guarantee the $250 million bond. No other collateral was posted or promised. The first couple sent…

Still seems like the system is bending over backwards to give him some freedom (and chance to run) before spending the rest of his youth in prison. The alternative is they keep him in jail pending trial if he can't come up with the $25m (10% bond). This is the reality any "normal" criminal would face. Why does he get special treatment?

Re: Bankman-Fried's Shrinking ‘$250M Bond’

#37

Post by ethanbond »

BobbyJo wrote: post #29
maxbond wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you believe he's guilty beyond a shadow of doubt, it shouldn't disturb you that he's on house arrest instead of in prison. His trial will last a year or two, his sentence probably be 10 to life (probably closer to the "life").

Why not? He did plenty more harm to plenty more people than many others who had to wait in jail for their trial. I think it's perfectly rational to be upset that someone who destroyed billions in wealth is treated more kindly by the justice system than than people who've done far less damage.

Did he destroy billions in wealth?

Seems to me that he made chart go up for no reason and everyone was perfectly happy with that, and when chart went down for the same reasons (i.e. fraud/no legitimate reason) then everyone is upset about it.

If people are upset about lesser offenses getting handled more aggressively, they should spend some time lobbying for lesser offenses to get handled less aggressively.

Re: Bankman-Fried's Shrinking ‘$250M Bond’

#38

Post by whatshisface »

itslennysfault wrote: post #36
nkurz wrote: post #2

I think this article is "directionally correct", but wrong (or at least misleading) about some key details. > Instead, Bankman-Fried’s parents promised to pledge their Palo Alto, California, home as collateral. The Palo Alto home is rumored to be worth $4 million. And that is the full extent of the collateral pledged to guarantee the $250 million bond. No other collateral was posted or promised. The first couple sent…

Still seems like the system is bending over backwards to give him some freedom (and chance to run) before spending the rest of his youth in prison. The alternative is they keep him in jail pending trial if he can't come up with the $25m (10% bond). This is the reality any "normal" criminal would face. Why does he get special treatment?

Perhaps bail is lower for people with lesser means. I know I haven't heard of $25M figures thrown around very often.

Re: Bankman-Fried's Shrinking ‘$250M Bond’

#39

Post by dragonwriter »

loeg wrote: post #17
maxbond wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like there's a group of people who want him to be obliterated and will be dissatisfied at every step if it isn't mounting his head on a pike. It's honestly one of the more disturbing parts of the story for me.

It's just clearly not a $250M bond. Almost nothing to do with SBF himself. I mean, also, fuck the guy, but the prosecutors claiming this is a 250M bond are just being absurd. This is a $4M bond, or maybe up to $12M depending on the assets pledged by the lesser guarantors. It's a far cry from $250M claimed by the prosecution.

> It's just clearly not a $250M bond.

It is, in fact, a $250M bail bond, people just have a very wrong mental model, based on a bad generalization from an already slightly wrong mental model of the terms when an arms-length bail agent provides surety to the court for the defendant, of what that means.

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