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Elizabeth Holmes loses bid to stay out of prison

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Re: Elizabeth Holmes loses bid to stay out of prison

#151
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't see how government's monopoly on legal violence is relevant here. Assuming bad faith by the manufacturer, how would you "dollarise" damage caused by incorrect sample analysis that caused the death of a patient ?

> how would you "dollarise" damage caused by incorrect sample analysis that caused the death of a patient I don’t personally believe jail should be limited to violent acts for this reason. (My exceptions being corruption and fraud.)

Willful negligence resulting in death arguably is violence. It becomes obvious when the device is not a blood test but say firing a gun in the air without regard to where the bullet will land. Willfully misrepresenting medical testing is firing a gun in the air without regard to where it goes; it is totally unreasonable to believe the outcome will be anything but violent.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes loses bid to stay out of prison

#152

The Bureau of Prisons will designate where she goes, and unless there's some prevailing medical reason (unlikely), or other reasons involving cooperation, request, security threats, access to particular religious facilities, or a repeat stay, my understanding is they're constrained by statute to pick a reasonable distance from home (that might be only X years from release date though). The women's FCI in Dublin, Cali…

That's the theory. In reality, there are "prison consultants" who can help you get into a "better" prison.

You can ask for citations, and I actually found one [1].

[1] https://archive.ph/vFvq7

Re: Elizabeth Holmes loses bid to stay out of prison

#153

Holmes, Madoff etc... are all the proof that you need that the only people who go to Jail for fraud are the ones whose fraud hurts specifically investors.

However you put it, but this judgement proves that justice exists, and i am happy to see scammers put behind bars in the mother of democracy. USA in-spite of its gun culture still rocks in some aspects.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes loses bid to stay out of prison

#154

I have a really hard time believing that non-violent crimes should result in a person being locked in a cage. I'd rather see restrictions that limit their ability to do more damage, like when a reckless driver gets their license revoked. Besides, a free person with a job can pay back their debt to society, literally, with money, instead of the rest of us paying their living costs. EDIT: As comments point out, it is a…

Completely agree. I'm not sure who benefits from locking people in cages when their ability to roam free doesn't endanger anyone's safety. Ban her from owning equity in any business if you need to avoid repeat offenses.

If the purpose is retribution or deterrence there are so many cheaper and less cruel ways to achieve those ends than taking decades of life and handing hundreds of thousands of dollars to prison industrial complex: caning, banishment, compulsory face tattoos of shame, whatever. The only reason we have prison sentences for crimes like this (along with most property and drug crimes) is so we can torture people without having to look at it directly. I wonder what society would be like if juries had to personally flog each person they sentence, or execute them at the date of (life_expectancy-sentence_years). The way we deal with crime in America today is sanitized barbarism, but if you peel back any layer of the justice system it's pretty easy to see it for what it is.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes loses bid to stay out of prison

#155

If you steal more than $5K three times in California, you will get 25 years in prison [1], and while I think that's disgusting and detestable, I don't want any elites getting special treatment either, so as to force change in those sentencing guidelines. [1] https://www.kannlawoffice.com/grand-theft.html

Are you from the area? On the way I literally walk through multiple open air stolen goods sellers that have been around for years. The bay area is famous for folks walking out stores with stolen goods: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/after-san-francisco-sho... You can kill someone with a gun and spend just 7 years in prison. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Kate_Steinle Btw, I fully support Holmes gettin…

Yea, my wife works at a retail store here in the bay area and theft so normalized its unbelievable to me. They hire low paying loss prevention staff that have 0 power to do anything and just use to their time to look daunting while following shoplifters around so they can claim insurance loss when they walk out of the store with merch. They don't call the police or do anything that could be cause for the criminals to bring a suit against the store for violating their rights.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes loses bid to stay out of prison

#156

Reading this entire story, it baffles me that as of today I can still add a "Full Self-Driving Capability" option when ordering a Tesla.

Self-delusion is not fraud. It's only a crime when you are not deluded and knowingly lie.

Building your company so that you can keep up your own delusions (and repeat them to customers) in spite of evidence sounds like it might be fraud.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes loses bid to stay out of prison

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an FSD Beta user. If you stop reading at "Full Self Driving Capability", then yes, it's an issue for a potential purchaser. But if you read just a little bit more, it becomes more clear what you're buying. I don't feel "fooled" and neither do 1000s of other Beta testers with whom I regularly communicate on Discord.

Don't think this is the point. Calling something Oranges, and then saying "they're not really oranges, but an approximation, but we call them oranges bc it sounds cool" is still fraudulent in my view.

No that’s not fraud. Fraud requires a lie and justifiable, detrimental reliance on that lie by a victim.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes loses bid to stay out of prison

#158

The Bureau of Prisons will designate where she goes, and unless there's some prevailing medical reason (unlikely), or other reasons involving cooperation, request, security threats, access to particular religious facilities, or a repeat stay, my understanding is they're constrained by statute to pick a reasonable distance from home (that might be only X years from release date though). The women's FCI in Dublin, Cali…

That's the theory. In reality, there are "prison consultants" who can help you get into a "better" prison. You can ask for citations, and I actually found one [1]. [1] https://archive.ph/vFvq7

Hucksters, almost all of them.

They prey on the desperate. They preyed on my family.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes loses bid to stay out of prison

#160
post #69

One of the questions I have about any fraudster is where they fall on the goof/sociopath spectrum. It's surprisingly easy to start a Ponzi scheme by accident, after all. You just offer investors good returns (legal), be too optimistic about how it will go (legal), and then give them the promised returns anyhow by using other investor money (very illegal). I suspect a number of companies even get away with it, as they…

I don't like Holmes and am pleased she's getting some comeuppance, but I can play Devil's Advocate in this one space: maybe she always wanted kids, focused on her career (lol), then this all happened, XYZ. Holmes is 39 years old. If she really, truly wanted biological children then now was the time to make sure it happened. She's a villain, but she's also a complex human being that probably has multiple priorities, goals, ambitions, etc.

Devil's advocating myself: she could freeze eggs too, yes. Can't speculate on the pros and cons of different decisions.

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