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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

#411

Post by throwup238 »

lijok wrote: post #398
tombert wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why do you think SBF requires 20-25 years to rehabilitate?

We don’t rehabilitate in this country.

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

#412

Post by survirtual »

mrbonner wrote: post #400

I really don't understand the severity of criminal justice system punishment. SBF got sentenced to 25 years for a white collar financial crime while a guy in my hometown hit and killed 2 people, while DUI and ran over 100mph on a local street with 35mph limit got 26 months sentence forb2 vehicular homicide.

The money he stole and defrauded is lifetimes worth. Lifetimes of economics stolen from people. Lifetimes of stresses caused on people because of what he stole. How many people may have ended their lives because they lost everything? How many silenced voices are there in pain because of his fraud?

White collar criminals can and should be likened to serial killers in the severity of their crimes. They spread invisible miseries indiscriminately, near entirely without justice or recognition. I am glad one of them is finally being properly punished.

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

#413

Post by tootie »

FabHK wrote: post #276
setgree wrote: post #176

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…

FWIW, I didn't find Lewis's book as bad (or amoral) as it's often made out to be. Yes, he didn't put his judgement in every paragraph, but his description of SBF was: a) absolutely damning! SBF's lack of empathy, his notion that (given that everyone else is stupid) he knew best and should basically ignore the advice of everyone else (particularly his elders), his naive utilitarianism without any deontological/virtue…

Banality of evil. I'm sure SBF seems like a decent person who just wants to run a cool business and play with technology. He never thought he was a crook.

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

#414

Post by Zaskoda »

segasaturn wrote: post #385
bearjaws wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stole 1% from the pension fund for Ontario's teachers. Stole unknown amounts of peoples retirement. Ruined many peoples lives. How is 50 years too long? The literal largest fraud case in history doesn't even have a life sentence... We are sending a clear message, grift and steal your way to the top and then get out just in time to retire with all your stolen goods. You know when he gets out he is gonna go unlock a de…

25 years is a long, long time. He's going to spend the best years of his life in federal prison and come out the other side in a world that's moved on without him. 25 years ago the World Trade Center buildings were still standing. IMO, if we're thinking of sentencing someone to 50 years or life in prison, we should cut to the chase and execute them instead. It's faster and cheaper for the taxpayers, and arguably less…

He'll serve for less than 15 years, which is a blink of an eye given the devastation he caused.

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

#415

Post by latexr »

acdha wrote: post #146
hnthrow9009 wrote: post #103

[flagged]

How much do you think an extra 5 years would add in terms of deterrence? It seems downright dishonest to characterize a third of his life as a joke. Where I would put my energy into is making the risk of being prosecuted higher. If getting prosecuted is rare, the kind of people who are into cryptocurrency are going to figure that they’re likely to get away with it as long as they aren’t so blatant. White collar crime…

> How much do you think an extra 5 years would add in terms of deterrence?

Your parent post isn’t arguing for SBF to get 30 years, but pointing out how a large crime which affected at least hundreds of thousands and drove people to suicide gets a lower sentence than a violent crime which affects one person.

I have no idea if that’s true in the US, just trying to clarify the point.

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

#416

Post by dns_snek »

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…

Statistical value of a human life in the US is around $7.5 million. Stealing $10 billion is therefore statistically equivalent to killing 1300 people, or pretty close to half of 9/11. That seems like a pretty light sentence to me.

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

#417

Post by bena »

mrbonner wrote: post #400

I really don't understand the severity of criminal justice system punishment. SBF got sentenced to 25 years for a white collar financial crime while a guy in my hometown hit and killed 2 people, while DUI and ran over 100mph on a local street with 35mph limit got 26 months sentence forb2 vehicular homicide.

Intent has a lot to do with it.

SBF operated with forethought and malice. He intended to deceive people. He was trying to commit fraud.

Hometown guy did not intend to crash or kill anybody.

Now the results of hometown guy's actions were more direct and severe, but had he had the choice, he would not have crashed and killed anybody. He's not a criminal, just a fucking idiot.

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

#418

Post by nabla9 »

codedokode wrote: post #375

To be honest, isn't 25 years too much? He didn't beat or kill anyone, he simply found dumb people and took little of their money. It is not like he was robbing poor people by increasing their utilities bill every year or raising rent. Why is such a small, non-violent crime so severely punished? Of course he deserves a punishment but maybe not that much?

As the article says, it sends important message. And he does not serve 25 years.

I don't know how it is the US, but in Finland people get relatively longer sentences for financial crimes because long sentences have inhibitory effect for money crimes.

Most violent crimes happen without premeditation by people without impulse control and longer sentences don't actually reduce crime. White collar criminals weigh the costs and benefits and do their crimes in cold blood after long time of planning.

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

#420

Post by z2 »

mrbonner wrote: post #400

I really don't understand the severity of criminal justice system punishment. SBF got sentenced to 25 years for a white collar financial crime while a guy in my hometown hit and killed 2 people, while DUI and ran over 100mph on a local street with 35mph limit got 26 months sentence forb2 vehicular homicide.

Not that this holds up to scrutiny, and there are certainly issues with fungibility of lives and money, but let's say the value of a life in the US is $10 million. $10 billion in fraud is 1,000 lives claimed. The sentence could have been worse.
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