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

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91–100 of 157 posts

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

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still early to tell but as far as I can see, there's deposits missing, and even insofar as those are missing, they have been stolen and not destroyed. The "billions destroyed" seems more likely to refer to the general "destruction" of nominal wealth which, I posit, wasn't real to begin with.

Where are you getting this $2B figure? The claimed "liquidity shortfall" was $8-10B and most of the assets (MAPS, SRM, OXY, FTT) are worthless. I would expect people in the FTX creditors telegram group for example to post about it if there was news that caused the expected value of our claims to increase from 10-30c to 80c.

Ha just replied to your other comment. I'd trust your $10B figure over mine!

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

#92
post #18
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no constitutional right - people accused of murder are not (often) released on bail. The 8th Amendment only applies to bail amounts when bail is granted. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excessive_Bail_Clause#Preventi...

He has a constitutional protection from cruel and unusual punishment. If there's no reason to believe he's dangerous to society, and he's presumed innocent, and we can use a bond to ensure he'll appear, then there's no reason to hold him.

If staying in jail without bail were considered "cruel and unusual punishment", then it would be unconstitutional for anyone to be kept in jail.

Cruel and unusual punishment does not apply here, and isn't really clearly defined regardless.

I personally agree that not holding him is good fwiw.

However, it also is horribly inconsistent. People who are guilty of driving while black, or non-violent drug offenses, or so on, are given much less generous treatment when it comes to unsecured bail, and when it comes to evaluating if they're a flight risk.

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

#93
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay. So he's on house arrest, wearing an ankle monitor, and if he flees his parents will never recover financially. What's the problem?

Some people may see it as unjust that SBF gets to chill in a $4mm Palo Alto house while some of his depositors may not have houses as a result of having their funds stolen by SBF.

That makes sense, but shouldn't impact the decision of the court, since he's presumed innocent.

I'm totally game for working for a more equitable society where everyone gets to live in dignity even if they put their money into bad crypto exchanges though. Let's definitely do that, regardless of what happens in this case.

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

#94

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…

It's different from state to state. In IL, for example, (until recently) someone awaiting trail would give the government 10% directly and the state would act as their own bondsman as bondsmen/bounty hunters are illegal. If they were deemed a low flight risk they could also be released on an "i-bond" aka "released on your own recognisance" meaning they're just trusting you to show up to trials. I said "until recently…

Wow, props to IL for doing this.

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

#95
post #53
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's been charged, there's a mountain of evidence against him, and he's facing trial. That's what my expectations were. I don't think see a need to crank every step of the process up to 11. He's on a conveyor belt leading to a meat grinder.

People are upset that he is getting special treatment. Again. He doesn't deserve it.

> People are upset that he is getting special treatment.

He's not, and the perception that he is comes from a misunderstanding of the systems involved, which is why the descriptions of how this is supposedly special treatment or surprising tend to include as the foundation multiple layers of wrong assumptions about how bail works in general.

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

#96
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He operated a Ponzi scheme, so yes, he did in fact destroy billions in wealth. What is the evidence to the contrary? The fact that FTX destroyed billions in wealth is not relevant to this trial at all. It’s whether or not he intentionally and maliciously defrauded his customers.

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

#97
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> What a weird argument you're making What argument do you think I'm making? The argument I'm trying to make is that an article serving as an explainer of a complex legal topic should be factually correct, even if it complicates the desired narrative. Do you disagree with this? > Would you extend a 250M credit to someone who offers you 11.8M in illiquid assets? As to the bigger question of whether this bail arrangeme…

> The argument I'm trying to make is that an article serving as an explainer of a complex legal topic should be factually correct

It’s weird that you’re pointing out an irrelevant technical detail which misses the point of the opinion piece. The point is that SBF was able to walk out of jail without paying anything and the author finds this absurd.

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

#98
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has a constitutional right to it. He's presumed innocent in the eyes of the law.

That's not really an answer. Many people are held without bond. The answer is he's from a well off family so he has good lawyers.

People held without bond are in that situation for (presumably) extraordinary circumstances. Long history of violent behavior, huge flight risk.

This is a punk (he is a prick) who wouldn't know how to wield a butter knife. He agreed not to have an extradition hearing in the Bahamas. He's hardly a danger to others or a flight risk.

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

#99
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably their careers are now both collectively and irreversibly ruined. Like the Nobel prize winner that invented some major form of fertilizer that turned out to be a nazi

Fritz Haber was not a Nazi. In fact, he was Jewish, and was forced to leave Germany when the Nazis came to power. His involvement with chemical weapons was during WW1; he died in 1934.

In addition his involvement with chemical weapons took a huge toll on his wife Clara to whom he wasn’t the nicest to begin with

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

#100
post #64

I want to contrast SBF's treatment at the hands of the government to that of Carl Nelson. This is a name you probably don't know but let me summarize [1]. Nelson was an Amazon employee who worked on securing real estate deals for data centers. Based on an anonymous email sent to Jeff Bezos that Nelson was getting kickbacks on these deals where Amazon was being charged exorbitant leasing fees. In 2020, the FBI showed…

>Why exactly is the government not seizing every asset he owns

I find it utterly strange that people respond to injustice by asking why isn't more injustice being done, you know for equity?

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