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

coindesk.com

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

#101

Post by s1artibartfast »

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…

>As an aside, the problem with this system-- like a lot of the US justice system-- is that it favors people with wealth.

I agree that it favors people with wealth, but don't really see a better solution, if you take that to mean detaining fewer presumably innocent people.

X People are low risk and should are released awaiting trial Y People seem higher risk but can be made low risk by providing collateral.

Eliminating Y just means more people in jail.

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

#102

Post by anonymoushn »

ethanbond wrote: post #86
anonymoushn wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He stole like 10 billion dollars from his customers. Not sure how much of it he managed to subsequently destroy vs. successfully convey to other people, but does that matter?

Well one way in which it matters is that destroyed wealth is irrecoverable. It no longer exists. Stolen wealth might still exist somewhere and might be recoverable. Also is it $10B in stolen deposits?! I seem to be coming across a $1-2B figure but admittedly haven't been following super closely.

Yes, about $10b of customer funds.

Funds misappropriated by Alameda and spent on VC investments may ultimately have become people's salaries. Some politicians have announced their intention to donate an amount of money equal to SBF's contributions of customer funds, but it's unclear whether they mean "donate to my own 501(c)(3)" or "return to FTX to be paid to creditors" and the phrasing certainly sounds more like the former. Most of the funds were probably embezzled (you will hear these people say "loaned" I guess) by FTX/Alameda executives or lost as part of Alameda's trading operations. Recovery of trading losses is extremely unlikely, especially trading losses that occurred long before the bankruptcy on venues other than FTX. SBF and BlockFi are currently arguing that each of them should receive the $441 million of Robinhood shares that SBF purchased using customer funds. "Hackers" stole about $500 million of customer funds from FTX US and FTX Intl immediately following the bankruptcy, and these funds have (mostly?) made their way into RenBTC and been bridged to native BTC and sent to mixers.

Some FTX customers who withdrew funds as part of their normal operations will face clawbacks, and some other FTX customers such as Modulo Capital and @AlgodTrading who have essentially stolen from all other creditors will hopefully also face clawbacks, but the total amount recoverable this way is maybe $1-4 bn, and all of these people are creditors anyway, so giving the money to other creditors doesn't do anything to address the shortfall.

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

#104

Post by strangattractor »

loeg wrote: post #45
dragonwriter wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 thi…

Extending a large unsecured personal bond to a fraudster seems pretty useless and I think laypeople can recognize that.

Basically they can ruin his parents if he skips - take everything they own and any bitcoin or other assets up to $250 mil if they find it. They are betting he will not do that. They are trying to publicly appear to be aggressive.

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

#105

Post by loeg »

tiahura wrote: post #58
loeg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extending a large unsecured personal bond to a fraudster seems pretty useless and I think laypeople can recognize that.

Hence, the ankle monitor and his parents’ house. And judge, don’t forget, Mr. SBF voluntarily waived extradition.

His parents' house is the secured portion of the bond! It's $4M, which is a lot, but nothing compared to the unsecured $246M IOU.

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

#106

Post by s1artibartfast »

itslennysfault wrote: post #48
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…

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…

Im not sure I understand correctly.

Are you saying they no longer take flight risk into account at all for release?

Do they take any consideration for ability to pay the i-bond?

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

#107

Post by loeg »

LgWoodenBadger wrote: post #72
maxbond wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the reasoning why it wouldn't, and why are we forgetting that he's also wearing an ankle monitor?

An ankle monitor doesn't do anything to prevent you from fleeing, since it can be removed with any number of readily available tools.

I.e., scissors.

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

#108

Post by dragonwriter »

TheDong wrote: post #92
maxbond wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

> 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

There's several factors at work here, but the most significant is that most offenders, especially most low-level offenders, are charged in state systems, and most (but not all, and this is changing, erratically) of the state systems rely much more heavily on financial conditions, and on secured bonds as the primary condition, in part due to very intense lobbying by the bail bonds industry to state governments (both directly and using astroturf groups to lobby the citizenry when their position is threatened.)

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

#109

Post by rootusrootus »

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…

It is also not quite universal. Oregon, for example, does not have a private bail bond system. And bounty hunting is illegal here (looking is okay, but you cannot apprehend, you will end up in jail; you must get the local police to intervene).

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

#110

Post by loeg »

dragonwriter wrote: post #39
loeg wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

Are you familiar with the "please don't sneer" guideline?

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