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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

#581

Post by trogdor »

GCA10 wrote: post #292
sneak wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I agree. This should fall under “caveat emptor”. Everyone using unregulated exchanges (which IMO should be an option for everyone) should recognize that they are subject to additional risks (and benefits). The government shouldn’t outlaw free climbing either. It’s your own fault if you treat a bunch of foolish kids with millions of dollars the same way you would an onshore FDIC-insured regulated bank. Canada Bi…

It's worth noting that a huge amount of the government's case involved evidence that SBF and team were buying lavish oceanfront condos, paying superstar athletes for weird TV commercials, etc. This was actually a tiny slice of the overall financial mischief at FTX. But it told well in front of a jury. And it reinforced a big point that prosecutors keep wanting to make, as publicly as possible. "Don't take the custome…

> The intricacies of FTX's full financial gyrations were sometimes too complicated to put in front of jury.

What evidence do you have of this? Jury trials frequently involve ‘complicated gyrations’ — that’s what expert testimony is for.

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

#582

Post by dragonwriter »

dragonwriter wrote: post #68
jimberlage wrote: post #22

If he’s eligible for parole at 1/3 of a 25 year sentence, he will spend anywhere from between 8 years, 4 months in prison or 25 years. That would make him somewhere between 40 and 57 when he gets out.

> If he’s eligible for parole at 1/3 of a 25 year sentence He is not; there is no federal parole (for people sentenced ib the last ~37 years.) There is “good conduct time” that can reduce time served to not less than ~85% of the time sentenced, so around 21 years minimum.

Well, its a little more complicated, and depending on the degree of release you are interested in. He could be “out” either a year earlier than I said in the above, or in half of his total sentence:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39855552

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

#584

Post by [deleted] »

throwawayyyyy10 wrote: post #568

Many of the comments here about the utility of punishment is very utilitarian, which is ironically fitting since we're talking of SBF. What I never see acknowledged (or believed) by more lenient people is the fact that adequate punishment (sometimes harsh is adequate) serves to send a message not only to other offenders, but maybe most importantly to non-offenders, that the justice system is worth something. "Crime d…

[deleted]

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

#585

Post by gjvc »

lesuorac wrote: post #220
misiti3780 wrote: post #3

A year ago, HN didnt think he was going to jail: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33908850

Honestly, downvoted. The top voted comment in that topic is saying he's going to jail. Just because in a forum with a gazillion people some people have a different one doesn't make it representative of the median/mean/etc. Also, it's not bad to have a counter-opinion to a group; it is bad to claim a singular opinion is that of the group without any actual justification. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33908577

Dishonestly, you mean.

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

#586

Post by A_D_E_P_T »

marcinzm wrote: post #177
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.

I believe that, as a matter of public policy, there ought to be an important distinction between violent and non-violent crimes.

The rationale behind prison, as opposed to corporal punishment without incarceration, is to remove dangerous people from society, so that they don't further victimize the public.

A violent murderer -- of really any type of murder, e.g. of a random stranger, of one's spouse, or a murderer-for-hire -- should be removed from society for society's benefit. The key point is that the needs of society must come first; punitive measures are a secondary concern. As theory goes, this is trivial.

In SBF's case, his ability to further harm the public is absolutely minimal, provided his punishment includes severe restrictions on his ability to access computers and serve as the director or shareholder of any business. I'd sentence him to a few years in jail, as a punitive measure, and then a lifetime of community service and probation. Let him try and do some good, if he's sincere about those stories he tells re his motivations.

You might argue that punitive measures serve a vital function as deterrence, but evidence doesn't seem to support that argument, and in any case it applies far more strongly to violent crime than to financial crimes. As, in the latter, crimes are often amorphous and poorly delineated, and selective enforcement is the rule rather than the exception.

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

#587

Post by spxneo »

wolpoli wrote: post #550
spxneo wrote: post #528

Been following SBF for a long time and this quote my local rabbi told me once comes to mind: "spxneo, if you deceive people that demands to be deceived, you will be rich. if you are truthful with those people that demands to be deceived, you will become enemies. if you are truthful with people that demands truth, you will be neither friends nor enemies and poor."

If you deceive people that that demands truth, do you become rich and become enemies?

maybe but you wont get to keep it because the people you fooled will try their best to not let you have it which is what happened to SBF. I'm trying to point at the analogy to crypto here. everybody believed in something that wasn't but badly wanted it to be true. somebody sold them that false reality and the capital moved from people who were living in a false fictional reality to people who never left this reality.

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

#588

Post by [deleted] »

tdudhhu wrote: post #503

The difference between opinions in this thread is interesting. I think it's mainly because some see a punishment as revenge and others as correction. But, as user publius_0xf3 is showing, revenge does not work. The victims don't get their money back. If this sentence is used as correction I also think it does not work. Would such a correction really take 25 years? His life is over. I don't see how such a long time is…

[deleted]

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

#589

Post by [deleted] »

coldtea wrote: post #564

> Judge Lewis Kaplan, just before announcing Bankman-Fried's 25-year sentence, said there was a risk "that this man will be in a position to do something very bad in the future, and it's not a trivial risk." I call bullshit. Typical punitive justice reasoning. He might had done fraud, but it's hardly a risk that he "will be in a position to do something very bad in the future".

[deleted]
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