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SEC obtains final consent judgments against former FTX and Alameda executives

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Re: SEC obtains final consent judgments against former FTX and Alameda executives

#41

Post by arduanika »

The reduced sentences for Ellison, Wang, and Singh make sense in light of their cooperation. This is how plea deals work. The conviction of SBF seems simple in retrospect, but when the SDNY inked these deals, they did not yet know how just easy SBF would make their case for them, with all the tampering and perjury and obstinance.

Nonetheless, we should not be fooled by a sort of "Svengali defense", where Caroline or the others claim that they were beguiled by a dark charismatic genius who forced them into the crimes. The entire inner circle is super guilty of flagrant crimes. The shorter sentences are an artifact of plea bargains, and not a sign of lesser guilt.

Re: SEC obtains final consent judgments against former FTX and Alameda executives

#42

Post by lokar »

unfunco wrote: post #28
olalonde wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what he would gain from that. The crypto community largely backed him in the last election, and pardoning SBF would seriously piss them off.

> Not sure what he would gain from that. What? It's a bribe, he gains money. He doesn't care about pissing anyone off, he's (probably) not running for reelection, he cares about money, it's really that simple.

He also cares about normalizing financial fraud, establishing that it’s no big deal.

Re: SEC obtains final consent judgments against former FTX and Alameda executives

#43

Post by epistasis »

weddpros wrote: post #35
olalonde wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what he would gain from that. The crypto community largely backed him in the last election, and pardoning SBF would seriously piss them off.

Trump could do it... to piss off SBF himself (second biggest donor to Biden/democrats behind Soros)

SBF claims to have spread money equally between the parties, but hid the Republican donations:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sam-bankman-fried-says-donate...

Re: SEC obtains final consent judgments against former FTX and Alameda executives

#44

Post by electriclove »

dboreham wrote: post #25
uejfiweun wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I am pretty sure Trump is gonna end up pardoning SBF. It just seems like the sort of thing that is going to happen.

Does SBF still have money?

Do his parents?

Re: SEC obtains final consent judgments against former FTX and Alameda executives

#45

Post by duskwuff »

olalonde wrote: post #26
uejfiweun wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I am pretty sure Trump is gonna end up pardoning SBF. It just seems like the sort of thing that is going to happen.

Not sure what he would gain from that. The crypto community largely backed him in the last election, and pardoning SBF would seriously piss them off.

> Not sure what he would gain from that.

A convenient distraction, perhaps.

Re: SEC obtains final consent judgments against former FTX and Alameda executives

#46

Post by nullc »

bz_bz_bz wrote: post #23
xnx wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That’s a really light sentence for someone who defrauded people out of billions I don't excuse anything that she did, but didn't 98% of investors get everything back with interest?

Investors? No. Customers? They were paid the cash value of their crypto holdings at the time of bankruptcy. Thanks to a massive bull run in crypto between bankruptcy and payout, customers were able to be paid back in “full” even with the fraud. However, when BTC is sitting at $60k and your missing BTC is being paid back at $17k, you’re not exactly going to be feeling giddy.

And that price at the time of the bankruptcy was artificially deflated by FTX dumping customer assets to try to cover up their fraud.

Re: SEC obtains final consent judgments against former FTX and Alameda executives

#48

Post by edmundsauto »

moralestapia wrote: post #13
cortesoft wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if we all agree this is true, you still have to think practically. If we don't give a big incentive to turn on your co-conspirators, no one will turn and you might not be able to convict any of them.

>Can someone think of the criminals? SBF was toast with or without Ellison's testimony. It should be the other way around. You get 10 years. You don't want to cooperate? Great! You get another 10.

As I understand it, intent matters a lot, and that is typically through the testimony of people who had access to SBF in an environment where he was comfortable speaking candidly.

Those people are often accomplices. Sometimes the medium large fish get off if they chop up the big fish.

There are the way things should be, and there are the way things are.

Re: SEC obtains final consent judgments against former FTX and Alameda executives

#49

Post by jMyles »

akerl_ wrote: post #11
olalonde wrote: post #6

Yes she cooperated and pleaded early, but damn, she got off easy compared to SBF.

It turns out sentencing cares whether you’re cooperative and contrite or you stand by having done nothing wrong.

...the primary effect of which is that fewer than 4% of criminal cases go to trial, and our prison, parole, and probation systems are full of people who pled to crimes they did not commit, and poison trees of evidence are intentionally and ruthlessly planted without challenge or consideration by a jurist.

Re: SEC obtains final consent judgments against former FTX and Alameda executives

#50

Post by [deleted] »

perihelions wrote: post #40
olalonde wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what he would gain from that. The crypto community largely backed him in the last election, and pardoning SBF would seriously piss them off.

> "Not sure what he would gain from that." Besides the ~$1 million a head he's openly selling[0] pardons for? Why wouldn't he pardon a white-collar felon fraudster? This president has pardoned dozens of those[1]—frauds who had no reason at all to be deserving of clemency, other than being incredibly rich. He's pardoned fraudsters who defrauded thousands of victims[2]. He's pardoned a fraudster convicted of fraud, who…

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