301–310 of 1001 posts
He's a lesser evil. The only reasons why he went down were: 1. because he's not a greater evil, he didn't get dirt on people who can bring you down is a great way to never be brought down (Epstein is an anomaly); and 2. he did it publicly, there are about 2500 known billionaires in the world and estimated another 1000 that have assets that cannot be accounted for determine net worth accurately; he should worked on ge…
In under five hours! The jury was home in time for dinner. One question for legal people—why is there such a long gap between conviction and sentencing? In this case, the sentence won't be set until March of next year.
There’s a second trial around the same time for all the illegal political donations he made.
Remember: this is not a cryptocurrency problem, it's a banking problem. This guy created a literal bank. People deposited funds in it. Instead of simply being a custodian, he took the money and "invested" it. And lost it all. I wish this sort of thing would happen every time bankers screwed things up. Instead the government bails them out.
Pretty sure banks get audited to prevent this exact scenario from happening.
That happened fast! I expected it to drag on for much longer. Wonder if he'll appeal.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because there's essentially a whole second sentencing trial. After the verdict, the Parole Office prepares a Presentence Report (I'm not sure if these are public? I'm always looking for them and never finding them on PACER†), the "PSR", which is like the opening bid for the recommended offense levels and grouping. The prosecution and defense then respond to the PSR with exculpatory, mitigating, or aggravating claims,…
A guy named Lev Dermen just got 40 years with a guidelines score of 47 (the table doesn't even go that high). He was charged with defrauding the government out of half a billion dollars in biodiesel tax credits, went to trial and kind of like SBF all the other conspirators testified against him. That case also had destruction of evidence, witness intimidation, and at the time of sentencing the government was still tr…
* 7 as the 2b1.1 baseline
* +30 for dollar loss, which caps out at $550MM, against CFTC's estimate of $8Bn
* +6 for 25+ victims, another cap
* +2 for financial misrepresentations, maybe, depending on how bankruptcy fits in
* +2 for either sophisticated means or deliberate use of foreign jurisdictions (the same clause, one of those predicates is definitely going to hit)
* +4 for jeopardizing (or, in this case, destroying) a financial institution --- at a minimum, +2 (same clause) for >$1MM gross receipts
* +4 for his function as the leader in the crime
* +2 for obstruction, maybe
* +1-2 for grouping/combined offense level, depending on how the conspiracy, wire fraud, and campaign finance stuff groups out.
So that's low-to-high 50s as an offense level. 43 is straight life. But there's probably a statutory maximum in the mix here that takes life off the table somehow.
Later: I miskeyed the 2B1.1b1 cap, as 10MM (the bottom of the page); it's 550MM (on the next page). Doesn't change the analysis much, which is why SBF is so fucked.
I really don’t think they should have let the rest of the executive team walk, especially Ellison. They knew what they were doing too, and I’m sure they could have built a strong enough case to convince SBF and the others through plea deals and such
In under five hours! The jury was home in time for dinner. One question for legal people—why is there such a long gap between conviction and sentencing? In this case, the sentence won't be set until March of next year.
I was on the jury of a federal fraud trial with 2 defendants with 15 charges, ~30 million in losses.
We were thorough and went through each count separately, including reviewing some of the evidence, and were done in maybe 8 hours spread across 2 days.
We ended up with a mixed verdict: one count not guilty for both, another not guilty for one. I fully believe they were aware and committed fraud for the not guilty counts, but the prosecutor wasn’t able to cross the “reasonable doubt” threshold in our minds for those specific instances.
Only thing we weren’t super careful about was the first requirement for Mail/Wire fraud, which is “Mail and wires” were used.
It was amusing that the prosecutors brought in a bank IT guy to explain that “the internet uses wires”, but not really something we questioned.
Interestingly, FTX made a $500 million USD investment in Anthropic; supposedly, this was made while Anthropic was valued at $4.6 billion (unconfirmed). Now, Anthropic is nearing $30 billion. Anyone know the latest on this? Is FTX going to sell that stake off to pay back the debts? [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-bankman-frieds-anthropic...
That happened fast! I expected it to drag on for much longer. Wonder if he'll appeal.