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YouTuber sentenced to 6 months in prison for obstructing probe into plane crash

justice.gov

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Re: YouTuber sentenced to 6 months in prison for obstructing probe into plane crash

#51

Post by financltravsty »

adrr wrote: post #33
ta1243 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large companies commit crime constantly and make it pay, the fines they incur are simply counted a cost of doing business

They don't regularly commit crimes though. They commit regulatory violations. There's a big difference. Like getting a parking ticket versus being convicted for a felony. Ones that get convicted like Purdue Pharma are fined so heavily they are forced to close. Or they could just be banned from doing business like Arthur Anderson when they had to surrender their CPA licenses and forgo rights to practice.

Fraud, conspiracy, and wage theft are the common ones that companies commit every day.

How many times have people been fraudulently misled about the scope and responsibilities of their roles? How many times have companies misclassified workers or denied overtime pay? How many times have companies lied about their products and services? How many times have big tech companies conspired to keep wages down? How many private equity and pharmaceutical companies have engaged in profiteering?

They regularly commit crimes. Though the definition of crime is constantly being patched with loopholes by lobbyists and other well-connected jackals. The Overton window keeps on shifting. It's just a power battle between people more powerful than you.

Re: YouTuber sentenced to 6 months in prison for obstructing probe into plane crash

#52

Post by TeMPOraL »

ryandrake wrote: post #24
WillPostForFood wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legal fees alone are going to be many times YouTube revenue. Add lost wages for a half year in prison. Add future lost revenue from sponsors who don't want to be associated with this, and it has to be a huge financial disaster.

Even if the legal fees weren't many times the revenue, I never understood why couldn't the justice system default to fines like "All income arising out of crime + $XYZ" for all crimes, so that the fine is never a cost of doing business?

My guess: it's too expensive to keep track of what constitutes "income arising out of crime" for the statutory period / lifetime of the perpetrator, especially if it could spawn an endless stream of minor cases for whether any specific income is truly "arising out of crime".

Re: YouTuber sentenced to 6 months in prison for obstructing probe into plane crash

#53

Post by ugh123 »

fxtentacle wrote: post #8

For me, the really interesting question is not if he's guilty - I had assumed as much - but if he will come out financially successful. That video had millions of views and a sponsorship deal. Call me a cynic, but it seems that some companies will deliberately break the law and pay the price if it's worth it, so why not independent hustlers.

I doubt its anything that can beat 6 months in jail

Re: YouTuber sentenced to 6 months in prison for obstructing probe into plane crash

#54

Post by financltravsty »

boeingUH60 wrote: post #50
titzer wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steal a loaf of bread, do hard time. Steal $5 here and there millions of times over from unsuspecting customers with completely made-up junk fees, and it's an FTC fine...after years of haggling in court. The magic of indirection!

Nobody does hard time for stealing a loaf of bread, but sure keep ranting..

USSR? China? Malaysia? Saudi Arabia? Iran? USA if the police and DA want to make an example?

Re: YouTuber sentenced to 6 months in prison for obstructing probe into plane crash

#55

Post by JumpCrisscross »

omginternets wrote: post #45
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> law that says you can't intentionally crash a plane? No. We do crash tests from time to time [1]. But at a minimum, you must control--not even just own--the terrain you're crashing into. (It's also not solely a Part 91/FAA matter. The EPA, for example, would also want to have a say.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Boeing_727_crash_experime...

What does "control" mean, technically? I have an intuitive sense of what you're pointing at with the Boeing 727 crash experiment, but how does the law phrase it?

> What does "control" mean, technically?

"The power to govern, manage, direct, or oversee something" [1]. So if I own/possess acres of unfenced grasslands, I'd need to put up fences or people to monitor the property or at the very least crash site's borders.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/control

Re: YouTuber sentenced to 6 months in prison for obstructing probe into plane crash

#56

Post by constantly »

avar wrote: post #29
duskwuff wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note, however, that this doesn't mean that he would have gotten away with it if he'd cooperated. It means that the federal prosecutor decided that the act of obstruction would be easier to prove, since the intentional nature of those acts is much more self-evident.

> [...]this doesn't mean that he would have gotten away with it if he'd cooperated[...] If he'd stuck to the story that he just had an engine mishap would they have been able to prove that it was intentional? They'd almost certainly have revoked his license to ever fly again, but filming everything you're doing isn't illegal. Nor is wearing a parachute because you know you're a crappy pilot that'll bail out at the fi…

My understanding reading the original incident report, to my recollection, was that there was enough there that random grossly negligent youtuber trying to get clicks for an ad + a dozen cameras + parachute + not following safety protocol + not giving enough time of trying to restart before immediately bailing meant the beyond reasonable doubt conclusion would almost certainly be that this was premeditated.

Re: YouTuber sentenced to 6 months in prison for obstructing probe into plane crash

#57

Post by TeMPOraL »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #36
kesslern wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the Toupee Fallacy is lurking around in this conversation. We know how many cover-ups are successful, and the ones we know about are nearly universally unsuccessful.

Not disagreeing. Just pushing back on cover-ups being rational. In many cases, the cover-up wasn't worth it. "Full revelation of the underlying bad act" would have been utterly survivable, even taking into account the odds of getting away with no consequence.

Yeah, my feel is that the underlying act was often enough survivable, but it didn't feel like it at the time. A cover-up attempt in state of panic is opposite of rational (except maybe in terms of calming your own nerves).

Re: YouTuber sentenced to 6 months in prison for obstructing probe into plane crash

#58

Post by mplewis »

avar wrote: post #29
duskwuff wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note, however, that this doesn't mean that he would have gotten away with it if he'd cooperated. It means that the federal prosecutor decided that the act of obstruction would be easier to prove, since the intentional nature of those acts is much more self-evident.

> [...]this doesn't mean that he would have gotten away with it if he'd cooperated[...] If he'd stuck to the story that he just had an engine mishap would they have been able to prove that it was intentional? They'd almost certainly have revoked his license to ever fly again, but filming everything you're doing isn't illegal. Nor is wearing a parachute because you know you're a crappy pilot that'll bail out at the fi…

Yes, because nothing in the plane caused a loss of power.

Re: YouTuber sentenced to 6 months in prison for obstructing probe into plane crash

#60

Post by paulpauper »

fxtentacle wrote: post #8

For me, the really interesting question is not if he's guilty - I had assumed as much - but if he will come out financially successful. That video had millions of views and a sponsorship deal. Call me a cynic, but it seems that some companies will deliberately break the law and pay the price if it's worth it, so why not independent hustlers.

For me, the really interesting question is not if he's guilty - I had assumed as much - but if he will come out financially successful. That video had millions of views and a sponsorship deal. Call me a cynic, but it seems that some companies will deliberately break the law and pay the price if it's worth it, so why not independent hustlers.

given all the media attention and the general frivolity of the matter, that answers it. A tiny sentence at prison camp for a few months makes it worth it for a career of earnings and buzz.

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