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Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

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

#361
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.

prison should fundamentally be abt rehabilitation, not whatever retribution random ppl think is “proportional”

How long do you think it takes to rehabilitate someone so disconnected from reality and empathy as SBF?

Honestly I think that would take LONGER than 50 years...

I think 25 is on the high end of a reasonable sentence. White collar crime in the US has been a slap on the wrist (if anything!) since Enron. It's time we fix that. People need to see personal consequences for such anti-social and destructive behavior. If you are a CEO, you should be afraid of profiting from the suffering of others.

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

#362

10 years is a life sentence, anything more is satisfying bloodlust in voters to keep the magick trick of civilization afloat. This human impulse is why aliens don't visit. We're too barbaric to ourselves! xD

> 10 years is a life sentence, anything more is satisfying bloodlust

Retribution is a valid component of justice. But I’d argue, in the case of a fraudster, incapacitation is of equal concern.

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

#363
post #41
post #2

Seems low for what prosecutors consider "one of the biggest financial frauds in U.S. history." https://www.reuters.com/technology/sam-bankman-fried-be-sent...

Low? That's high! He didn't kill anyone. A sentence of 25 years completely destroys his life. He's been made an example of.

As far as I am concerned, when you steal from me, you robbed me of piece of my life. The time I spend earning that money, instead of being with friends or just pursuing a hobby or just wasting it on HN.

How many lifetimes worth of time were destroyed by his fraud.

It's definitely not high punishment.

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

#365
post #348
post #327

There's still a lot more 'crypto' scammers to go.

Crypto doesn’t need quotes

I've seen people in the cryptography space use airquotes when referring to cryptocurrency to show their contempt for what they see as a scammy riff on their very serious and important work.

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

#366
post #62

I think that's about fair and reasonable. It's been said in Europe he would not have gotten more than years and it's probably true. 25 years is a really long time and even if he does only 20, still super long. Here's a live tweeting of the sentencing hearing; some of Judge Kaplan's remarks are really interesting. https://twitter.com/innercitypress/status/177334004374401064...

If I broke into a person's house and stole $1000, even if I didn't directly hurt that person, I could expect to get several years in prison, basically regardless of the state. Lets say three years to be conservative on this? Sam Bankman Fried stole billions of dollars [1], probably often around $1000 at a time from tens of thousands of people. If going with my logic, he should be getting a lot longer than 25 years, u…

> If I broke into a person's house and stole $1000, even if I didn't directly hurt that person, I could expect to get several years in prison

Almost definitely not, especially if it was your first crime. It’s pretty unlikely you’d even be caught.

Severity of the punishment has extremely diminishing returns on discouraging future crimes. The only other impetus for a longer sentence is if you think the defendant is likely to commit more crimes when released. Besides that, longer sentences are hard to justify.

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

#367
post #342

This type of punishment is actually pretty terrible for all parties. I could easily see a different, harsher, but more fair punishment... 1. All assets are sold off to pay victims 2. Prison for a few years. 5? 3. can only work jobs where nobody reports to them (no management, C levels, etc). Also cannot make companies. 4. Cannot own more than 2 properties, one of which is his place of residence. 5. Cannot rent out an…

> still allows him to make a life, but severely limits the similar path he used to defraud people

Do you remember the trial? The man can’t follow rules. You would be wasting the court every microsecond because Sam decides he doesn’t understand what two properties or renting technically means.

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

#369
post #62

I think that's about fair and reasonable. It's been said in Europe he would not have gotten more than years and it's probably true. 25 years is a really long time and even if he does only 20, still super long. Here's a live tweeting of the sentencing hearing; some of Judge Kaplan's remarks are really interesting. https://twitter.com/innercitypress/status/177334004374401064...

Tbh, a bunch of American (high profile) lawyers had estimated that he'd only get a couple of years, max, as he had no prior convictions - and the nature of the case.

I think they must be unfamiliar with the federal judicial system which is almost always on the conservative side of sentencing unless there were some extremely extenuating circumstances. There were none here, this was straight up greed and grift on Sam's part.
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