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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

#961

Post by Breza »

FabHK wrote: post #475
gizmo wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much agree. "Number go up" by Faux is the better book in many respects, but Lewis's book contains much background info not reported elsewhere. Lewis's book is damning about SBF as you said. About how unapologetic and manipulative he is. About his willingness to gamble with other people's money. About his complete lack of ethical boundaries. About the casual way SBF ignored all laws he didn't like. About SBF's…

> Lewis gave SBF all the rope he needed to hang himself with, and that was all he needed to do. Very nicely put. Book recommendations: Faux Number go up is beautifully reported, in particular on the many scam and trafficking victims, the culture (Bored Ape parties), some of the players (eg SBF, the Tether people, etc.), and the underlying anarcho-capitalist mindset. On the impact on the underprivileged (that the "che…

Great recommendations! I've read all three of those books and they're terrific in different ways and all worth reading.

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

#962

Post by Breza »

kolbe wrote: post #644
tptacek wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with Lewis's book is that it was pretty clear it was an on-a-dime pivot from the original story he had planned to tell, about a wunderkind revolutionizing finance and trying to save the world at the same time.

And Lewis was into the original plot less than this one. Lewis is clearly on board with the progressive inclination to say that their cause is more important than operating within traditional bounds on behavior. Lewis was on board with SBF's irresponsible approach to risk management and regulatory oversight, because unlike Wall Streeters taking excessive risk for personal gain, SBF doing it for the sake of "improving…

Even if FTX had never collapsed, I would still be shocked that Lewis didn't get proof of the management team's charitable donations. Through the whole book, Lewis keeps saying that all the profits were getting rolled into charity. Then in the trial, it came Singh testified that he hadn't actually been giving away money; it is unclear if other folks were doing the same thing.

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

#963

Post by KptMarchewa »

outop wrote: post #932
abaymado wrote: post #856

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly doubt he will serve all 25. There is no parole in a fed case, but could get reduced time for good behavior. Unlikely he will be in prison stabbing people.

Good behaviour in federal sentences is restricted to 15% off the total.

There is also First Step Act.

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

#964

Post by rldjbpin »

the prosecuters might find this a win but from the comments it seems that there is next to no permutations where the general public would've been content.

meanwhile we are seeing "institutionalization" of crypto-related securities to displace the disrupters from the tech space.

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

#965

Post by animanoir »

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…

What are you talking about? 25 years is absolutely nothing! You think he will not recover? I bet you he’ll be an influencer or something like that once he is out after 15 years (because USA is corrupt as hell).

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

#966

Post by runako »

acdha wrote: post #852
runako wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So it should be really hard to argue that this is a "light" sentence. The well-considered federal sentencing guidelines put the sentence for this crime at over 100 years. That is, for an anonymous defendant at remove, our legal system believes that 100+ years is a fair sentence for this set of offenses. So another way of looking at this is because of who the specific defendant is here, the court shaved 80 years off…

That’s starting from misunderstanding how federal sentencing works - even the prosecutors only asked for half that. Ken White has a good explainer of how federal sentencing actually works and why the numbers people toss around are too high: https://popehat.substack.com/p/beware-the-flood-of-trump-sen...

From the article you linked:

"White collar criminals only get sentenced close to the statutory maximum when (1) they are only convicted of one or two counts with very low statutory maximum (say, one count of a crime with a five-year statutory maximum, as part of a plea bargain), or (2) cases involving truly extraordinary amounts of money."

Unlike the Trump case the article discusses, this case involves a truly extraordinary amount of money. Prosecutors did indeed ask for half that, but the court gave only half of the (already lenient) request due to facts about the person who was convicted.

Note that the Madoff case involved a similar amount of money and he indeed did get the big sentence. I suspect that was because he was likely to die in jail given any reasonable sentence, so better to make a show of it. In this case, SBF got a more lenient treatment for a similar offense because he is younger (note that the judge did not believe he has any remorse and still gave a lighter sentence).

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

#967

Post by dr_kiszonka »

Intralexical wrote: post #901
petertodd wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If anything, it's excessive if you consider the nature of the crime relative to the nature of murder or kidnapping. The value of a single human life is not infinite. In engineering and public policy, a value like $10 million / life is typically used to make trade-offs. SBF stole funds far in excess of that. Secondly, when funds of this scale are stolen, inevitably people wind up dying early from things like stress,…

> Secondly, when funds of this scale are stolen, inevitably people wind up dying early from things like stress, and suicides. Let's not forget that the time they spend living before dying of things like stress and suicide will often be quite painful too. Deaths of despair are no fun.

These are so-called states worse than death.

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

#969

Post by bdjsiqoocwk »

reso wrote: post #819

Sam is a crook, no doubt, but even now I find him a funny figure. His trial defence was awful. He sincerely believes he was trying to do the right thing, so spent his time on the stand defending his actions at length, instead of keeping his mouth shut except to express contrition. This probably cost him years of freedom. It's strange to say but there's an... authenticity to this that I find endearing.

If you think there's an authenticity to him, you're the kind of person he would successfully scam.

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

#970

Post by bdjsiqoocwk »

AI_beffr wrote: post #768

prison is such an interesting concept. violent people need to be physically separated for the safety of the population. but for a crime like this maybe it would be better to just give him 5-10 years in prison but never let him deal in finance again. i would rather have him on a road crew tying re-bar than using up tax payer money in prison...

> maybe it would be better to just give him 5-10 years

No it wouldn't, what an ignorant thing to say. People like this go immediately back to scamming as soon as they leave prison, and some times from the inside.

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