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Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

cnn.com

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Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#171

Post by stephenitis »

melenaboija wrote: post #110
sabana wrote: post #14

Quite a short sentence for the magnitude of the crime. Financial crimes like these do kill people and destroy countless lives. They deserve maximum pentalties.

What is the goal of the punishment? If it is to harm him and make the rest of the world satisfied with it 25 years behind bars seems enough to me, I don’t care if it is 25, 35 or 155. In five years I will have forgotten about this. If it is stopping others, same thing, I don’t think that if someone is determined to do something similar would care about 25 or more years.

25 is a steep deterrance. Hard to know its effect since it'd hopefully deter some of the more heinous future financial crimes.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#172

Post by stronglikedan »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #159

To put this into its proper perspective, see table 7 here: https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-pu... In 2022, the average murderer in the Federal Southern District of New York (N = 58) was sentenced to a median of 231 months, which comes out to 19 years and change. No crime of any type had an mean or median sentence higher than 25 years; most were far less than half. So it should be really hard…

That's only one count of murder. One life destroyed. SBF destroyed numerous lives, so it is a relatively light sentence by that data.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#173

Post by gjsman-1000 »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #159

To put this into its proper perspective, see table 7 here: https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-pu... In 2022, the average murderer in the Federal Southern District of New York (N = 58) was sentenced to a median of 231 months, which comes out to 19 years and change. No crime of any type had an mean or median sentence higher than 25 years; most were far less than half. So it should be really hard…

I'm not convinced by that; I think theft in many ways deserves a greater penalty.

Imagine if I rob 10,000 people of $2,000. Some people won't feel it. Others will be suicidal and may even commit suicide partially from hopelessness. There also could have ramifications that last years into the future, and cascade. (Can't buy new car to replace old car, don't have enough money now. Old car broke, missed work, got fired, found new job elsewhere that pays less...)

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#175

Post by stephenitis »

JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #126

How much did Jordan Belfort get? Elizabeth Holmes? Mt.Gox guy? 25 years is an exageration to be honest, there was never criminal intent, if anything there was too much belief in their creature, less like Madoff and more like the Long Term Capital Management guys. I don't remember them serving a single day in jail. It goes to show that judges and prosecutors are just trophy hunters for media attention these days, as p…

"Never any criminal intent"

Sounds like someone didn't follow this case closely enough

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#176

Post by setgree »

An uncle once commented about a cousin of ours that he demonstrated how it's possible to screw things up so badly that you can't possibly recover. I think that's true for Sam. I hope it's not true for the people in his orbit; I hope they can get out from under this and try to find meaning, ideally from repairing the harm they've done.

As Rick Heicklen writes, "We are not ever going to be Sam. But we could be Caroline, or Nishad, or Natalie. Or even Michael Lewis. We could easily make the same mistakes they do." [0]

[0] https://asteriskmag.com/issues/05/michael-lewis-s-blind-side, posted previously here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39118124

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#177

Post by marcinzm »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #159

To put this into its proper perspective, see table 7 here: https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-pu... In 2022, the average murderer in the Federal Southern District of New York (N = 58) was sentenced to a median of 231 months, which comes out to 19 years and change. No crime of any type had an mean or median sentence higher than 25 years; most were far less than half. So it should be really hard…

> If anything, it's excessive if you consider the nature of the crime relative to the nature of murder or kidnapping.

I suspect the resulting number of shortened lives amongst all the people who lost $8 billion worth of their money due to the fraud is more than the number caused by a single murder.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#179

Post by tshaddox »

zug_zug wrote: post #164
PokedBear wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone isn't a violent threat to society, there isn't much social benefit to keeping folks locked up longer then 20-ish years. 20-25 (assuming he gets the 15% off for good behavior the feds allow) is plenty.

Feels low to me too. I think the distinction between "violent" is completely irrelevant. I think taking money from people does just as much harm as physically injuring them -- many people would rather have several bones broken than lose their pension. The benefit is the deterrent. It's especially important for wealthy people who we may wonder if they greased wheels behind the scenes. If you want somebody to cry about…

I think it's generally appropriate to group violence, coercion, and fraud together in these discussions.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#180

Post by thereddaikon »

nkozyra wrote: post #61
PokedBear wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone isn't a violent threat to society, there isn't much social benefit to keeping folks locked up longer then 20-ish years. 20-25 (assuming he gets the 15% off for good behavior the feds allow) is plenty.

I have to ask: does 20 years provide more social benefit than 10? 5? Surely there's diminishing returns on imprisonment. As a deterrent and as a punitive, I get it, but even life sentences don't seem to deter crimes that can yield those punishments.

At some point its not about deterrent or social benefit but justice. People can say its not fair or productive for people like him to be locked up forever. Well, what about their victims? How many people's financial futures were destroyed by SBF? Is it fair to all those people that he will get to live a normal life? And likely a comfortable well off one at that. He already had a privileged family and I have no doubt it will be easy for him to profit off his story once he gets out. The hardly seems right.
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