Diverted? Took employers money without permission? Why won’t they just use the word we have that describes this?!
Because the facts have not been settled in court, and that's the word you use until you know the correct one.
Seattle startup’s ex-CFO accused of diverting $35M, losing it in crypto crash
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Re: Seattle startup’s ex-CFO accused of diverting $35M, losing it in crypto crash
#12To save time reading the content-free article, the indictment itself says:
He personally, and without approval, transferred $35M of company funds to a second company he owned jointly with another person.
He then invested that money in UST, which subsequently crashed.
So in addition to "don't put all your money in SVB", start ups need to add : "don't setup signing authority on your bank accounts such that one person can drain tens of millions".
Re: Seattle startup’s ex-CFO accused of diverting $35M, losing it in crypto crash
#13Re: Seattle startup’s ex-CFO accused of diverting $35M, losing it in crypto crash
#14The indictment in U.S. District Court charged Shetty with four counts of wire fraud. He is scheduled to be arraigned May 25. Shetty’s attorney, Cooper Offenbecher, said in an emailed statement that he and his client had been in regular contact with prosecutors and disagreed with the decision to bring an indictment. Damn...that is like 80 years, and even if the charges run concurrently and with plea, that may still 10…
Rob someone of $1000 at gunpoint, get 10 years of hard time, rob many people of $50MM with a pen, get 2 years at a minimum security facility. Rob the American people of $10b, walk free. See the 2008 meltdown for details. Only the most egregious frauds (Madoff, Skilling) result in any serious time.
Unrecovered money should be converted to extra years in prison at a rate of the average salary in the country. That would be a few hundred years of prison, right? Good enough deterrence for people to do bad things with money.
Re: Seattle startup’s ex-CFO accused of diverting $35M, losing it in crypto crash
#15The indictment in U.S. District Court charged Shetty with four counts of wire fraud. He is scheduled to be arraigned May 25. Shetty’s attorney, Cooper Offenbecher, said in an emailed statement that he and his client had been in regular contact with prosecutors and disagreed with the decision to bring an indictment. Damn...that is like 80 years, and even if the charges run concurrently and with plea, that may still 10…
I will eat my shoe if the median first-time white collar offender who only stole 35M gets 80 years. Elizabeth Holmes just spent two years delaying her prison date, and she (and her co-conspirator) will only serve a decade for stealing ten times as much.
> Elizabeth Holmes just spent two years delaying her prison date, and she (and her co-conspirator) will only serve a decade for stealing ten times as much.
They didn't steal. They raised money from investors based on lies and squandered it. Of course, some of the cash made it back into their pockets, but it's not like they pocketed the whole $900m they raised based on their falsehoods.
Re: Seattle startup’s ex-CFO accused of diverting $35M, losing it in crypto crash
#16To save time reading the content-free article, the indictment itself says: He personally, and without approval, transferred $35M of company funds to a second company he owned jointly with another person. He then invested that money in UST, which subsequently crashed. So in addition to "don't put all your money in SVB", start ups need to add : "don't setup signing authority on your bank accounts such that one person c…
He was the chief financial officer. His job was to decide where to keep cash. So he would have that authority.
Re: Seattle startup’s ex-CFO accused of diverting $35M, losing it in crypto crash
#17Diverted? Took employers money without permission? Why won’t they just use the word we have that describes this?!
Legally speaking, Theft implies both the act of taking, and intent to deprive the owner.
Presumably he’s going to claim he intended to be the hero who doubled their runway with a clever trick, in which case “diverting” is the appropriate word.
Re: Seattle startup’s ex-CFO accused of diverting $35M, losing it in crypto crash
#18To save time reading the content-free article, the indictment itself says: He personally, and without approval, transferred $35M of company funds to a second company he owned jointly with another person. He then invested that money in UST, which subsequently crashed. So in addition to "don't put all your money in SVB", start ups need to add : "don't setup signing authority on your bank accounts such that one person c…
He was the chief financial officer. His job was to decide where to keep cash. So he would have that authority.
Disagree. Actually disagree twice. The company had approved a treasury policy (apparently written by the CFO) that said cash had to be in t-bills or similar (therefore not unbacked stablecoin). But the policy is orthogonal to access control to the cash. You can have a CFO who decides where to put cash, but still require two officers to approve any transfer > $1M (for example). This neatly takes care of the problem where your CFO is a criminal, or has to pay ransom for his kidnapped wife, etc.
Re: Seattle startup’s ex-CFO accused of diverting $35M, losing it in crypto crash
#19Diverted? Took employers money without permission? Why won’t they just use the word we have that describes this?!
Legally speaking, Theft implies both the act of taking, and intent to deprive the owner. Presumably he’s going to claim he intended to be the hero who doubled their runway with a clever trick, in which case “diverting” is the appropriate word.
Embezzlement. The word you're looking for is embezzlement.
Re: Seattle startup’s ex-CFO accused of diverting $35M, losing it in crypto crash
#20Diverted? Took employers money without permission? Why won’t they just use the word we have that describes this?!
Because the facts have not been settled in court, and that's the word you use until you know the correct one.
> that's the word you use until you know the correct one
"Accused of" and "allegedly" do this adequately. We don't know if this is embezzlement or if the firm's financial controls were so loose the CFO could plausibly and single-handedly "divert" cash like this. The title is generous, not incorrect.