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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

#651

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #159

To put this into its proper perspective, see table 7 here: https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-pu... In 2022, the average murderer in the Federal Southern District of New York (N = 58) was sentenced to a median of 231 months, which comes out to 19 years and change. No crime of any type had an mean or median sentence higher than 25 years; most were far less than half. So it should be really hard…

I disagree with your assessment for all the reasons other people have said.

However, the other thing I'd point out is that murder is rarely a federal crime - it's usually a state crime. I was curious as to when it becomes a federal crime and found this: https://www.greenspunlaw.com/library/when-murder-is-a-federa...

Dollars-to-donuts that the vast majority of federal murders here were drug related. Not that I think the that makes it in any way better, but in many ways gang violence is more of a war than an individual, targeted killing. These types of circumstances matter when it comes to sentencing, and I'm not surprised at all that SBF's sentencing is longer than you "average" federal murder sentencing.

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

#652

Post by dheera »

publius_0xf3 wrote: post #449

It's funny. I lost tens of thousands of dollars thanks to this individual, yet his sentence brings me no joy or arouses any emotion at all. I'm utterly indifferent to his fate for some reason and I don't know why. Yet if he had been a mugger who stole a much smaller amount of money from me on the street, I think I would've been far more vengeful. Should I feel vindictive? Or is it healthy to forget about it and move…

Honestly I feel more vindictive toward the IRS and CA FTB who steal way, way, way more of my money and don't do anything useful with it. I still get cars smashed and I don't have free healthcare or high-speed rail.

SBF's crime is a lot smaller in comparison.

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

#653

Post by hwbunny »

Dalewyn wrote: post #542
Vicinity9635 wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"AUSA Nicolas Roos: Samuel Bankman-Fried stole $8 billion dollars. It was theft, from customers spread all over the world. It was a loss that impacted people significantly and caused damage. I want to address a few of the new victim letters" "AUSA Roos: They lost their life savings. A man who lives in Portugal - the day before bankruptcy his daughter was born. He was marred by the ominous specter of financial instabi…

[flagged]

Exactly.

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

#654

Post by jmspring »

publius_0xf3 wrote: post #449

It's funny. I lost tens of thousands of dollars thanks to this individual, yet his sentence brings me no joy or arouses any emotion at all. I'm utterly indifferent to his fate for some reason and I don't know why. Yet if he had been a mugger who stole a much smaller amount of money from me on the street, I think I would've been far more vengeful. Should I feel vindictive? Or is it healthy to forget about it and move…

For me, I don't think I feel the same way as you (my loss was small). There have been many cases where white collar crime which has similar (or greater) financial ramifications as the example of mugging you give, but the punishment is generally significantly lower (if at all). Granted a mugging could have differing levels of direct emotional impact, but white collar crime generally ends in lighter sentences.

SBF and Elizabeth Holmes deserve their sentences.

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

#655

Post by nemomarx »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #586
marcinzm wrote: post #177

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. I suspect the resulting number of shortened lives amongst all the people who lost $8 billion worth of their money due to the fraud is more than the number caused by a single murder.

I believe that, as a matter of public policy, there ought to be an important distinction between violent and non-violent crimes. The rationale behind prison, as opposed to corporal punishment without incarceration, is to remove dangerous people from society, so that they don't further victimize the public. A violent murderer -- of really any type of murder, e.g. of a random stranger, of one's spouse, or a murderer-fo…

If you consider the murder closure rate in most cities, selective enforcement of violent crimes seems absolutely normal - the cops simply will not find everyone who kills someone and track them down. They're not very good at it.

This undermines a lot of the certainty of punishment and therefore the deterring factor of law enforcement, of course.

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

#656

Post by shookthrowaway »

skaag wrote: post #527
publius_0xf3 wrote: post #449

It's funny. I lost tens of thousands of dollars thanks to this individual, yet his sentence brings me no joy or arouses any emotion at all. I'm utterly indifferent to his fate for some reason and I don't know why. Yet if he had been a mugger who stole a much smaller amount of money from me on the street, I think I would've been far more vengeful. Should I feel vindictive? Or is it healthy to forget about it and move…

I'm an indirect victim via BlockFi (headed by Zach Prince), which did business with FTX and lost my money as a result. I held 33 ETH in a BlockFi BIA account, and only recently got 4 ETH back. I don't know if I will ever recover the rest of my funds. I don't know what your financial situation is but I'm not rich, and it is extremely painful to look at ETH trading at above $3000 and realizing my rainy day fund has bee…

[flagged]

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

#657

Post by azemetre »

mrguyorama wrote: post #361
taminka wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

prison should fundamentally be abt rehabilitation, not whatever retribution random ppl think is “proportional”

How long do you think it takes to rehabilitate someone so disconnected from reality and empathy as SBF? Honestly I think that would take LONGER than 50 years... I think 25 is on the high end of a reasonable sentence. White collar crime in the US has been a slap on the wrist (if anything!) since Enron. It's time we fix that. People need to see personal consequences for such anti-social and destructive behavior. If you…

Some crimes simply need to be punished as a warning to others.

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

#658

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

loeg wrote: post #265
JKCalhoun wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, 27.5 would be right down the middle. As others have suggested, likely he won't even serve the 25 though.

> As others have suggested, likely he won't even serve the 25 though. Because instead he'll serve 21.25?

No, he can be released after 12.5 years due to time credits for good behavior. Time credits used to be capped at 15% of the sentence, but due to the relatively recent "First Step" Act it's now 50%.

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

#659

Post by shombaboor »

uejfiweun wrote: post #358

Lol. "My useful life is over," he says. As if there was anything useful about setting up a fraudulent exchange to steal billions of dollars so he could go play animal house with Caroline in his penthouse.

this is like a lot of tech "philanthropists" they're always ABOUT to do something nice. There's nothing ever stopping them from doing some volunteer work. But first the millions must be made. It's like borrowing good will on credit that's never paid back.

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

#660

Post by amelius »

freedomben wrote: post #504
publius_0xf3 wrote: post #449

It's funny. I lost tens of thousands of dollars thanks to this individual, yet his sentence brings me no joy or arouses any emotion at all. I'm utterly indifferent to his fate for some reason and I don't know why. Yet if he had been a mugger who stole a much smaller amount of money from me on the street, I think I would've been far more vengeful. Should I feel vindictive? Or is it healthy to forget about it and move…

Purely speculation on my part, but I tend to feel similarly, and I think the reason is that the mugger includes a physical threat of violence. Evolutionarily, the emergence of an economy with capital at modern-day scales are so new that we haven't had time to really adjust emotionally. It kind of reminds me of the various birds on previously untouched-by-humanity islands that had no fear of humans and would just sit…

I think humans also feel no anger towards deadly diseases. Maybe it is more comparable to that.

However, I do know that people can feel very ashamed from scams like phishing attacks and caller scams.

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