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Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

nytimes.com

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Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#831

Post by itsoktocry »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #720
hintymad wrote: post #243

I was reading the trial report by Inner City Press. The AUSAs were incredibly thorough and strategic. The evidences were air-tight, the cross-examination was masterfully controlled with precision and incisiveness, and of course the closing argument was forceful. It was a great joy to read the report, as if I was watching an extended episode of The Good Fight. On the other hand, the defense was really weak, quite hand…

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the AUSA's performance here was not particularly impressive. Yes, they constructed an airtight case, but to do that, they handed out immunity deals like candy to all of SBF's co-conspirators. Sure, they got their guy, but it almost looks like they wanted to craft a narrative that puts all of the blame on him. Because of that, several other huge fraudsters here (eg Carol…

>The US attorneys seem to have set up SBF to be the fall guy

The fall guy? Come on.

Some low-level bank executive commits fraud and this place calls for the CEO's head. SBF was in charge an knew everything that was happening. IT sounds like he orchestrated most of it. There was zero element of rogue employees, or anything of the sort.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#832

Post by ncallaway »

thr0waw4yz wrote: post #802
ncallaway wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want a good summary of each day of trial: https://www.theverge.com/authors/elizabeth-lopatto and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHD5JP6xZcE&list=PLySrw1Nvf-... If you want a really detailed overview of his testimony and cross-examination: https://www.youtube.com/@molly0xfff/streams > do they know where the money went Not all of it (at least, not for the trial). They showed significant components of it as part…

Did he have the right to say nothing at all in the cross-examination?

No.

As a defendant you have a right to not testify at all. You can decide not to take the stand. No one can request you take the stand, and the prosecution absolutely cannot make arguments about your decision not to take the stand in front of the jury.

But if you do take the stand, then the prosecution gets to ask you questions that you must answer (unless there’s a sustained objection about the specific question).

This is why so often defendants do not testify. Testifying on direct (when the defendant’s lawyer is the one asking questions) will almost always help the defendant. But the risks created by exposing oneself to cross examination are massive, so most choose not to take the stand.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#833

Post by shagie »

mahidol wrote: post #797
berniedurfee wrote: post #670

So what’s the final outcome? A long prison sentence or a few years hanging out on appeal followed by a few years in a low security federal penitentiary and a long career doing speaking engagements and appearances? Holmes got 9 years, but her actions had severe real world effects on people. Is that the ceiling for SBF?

I'm guessing he will get a bigger number, maybe even 30-50. But considering SBF and his personality, he doesn't seem like the guy that would ruffle too many feathers with prison officials and will most likely be released in half the time on account of good behavior.

> and will most likely be released in half the time on account of good behavior.

https://www.robertslawteam.com/blog/2013/05/early-release-fr...

> Federal law allows a credit of 54 days for every 365 days (or one year) of good behavior. To be eligible for early release, a person must be sentenced to more than one year in prison. ...

> The maximum number of days that can be awarded for good conduct is 54. The Bureau of Prisons has discretion to award any number of days less than 54 based on its evaluation of the inmate’s conduct.

The specifics are https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2021-title18/pdf/...

If sentenced to 30 years in federal prison, you'd be serving 85% of that time -- a bit over 26 years (after 26 years, 1404 days will be credited which is 3.8 years).

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#834

Post by fipar »

hoschicz wrote: post #740

[flagged]

I certainly don’t like the revenge/punishment philosophy of jail, but I think the system should be fixed for everyone (make it truly about rehab when possible, and about protecting society when not possible), but what you propose would only make an unfair system even more unfair. Why should he get off without jail and someone who breaks into a car and comparatively steals pocket change end up in jail?

Not to mention that someone with his background and upbringing should be even more aware of the difference of what’s right or wrong than other criminals.

I’m against all crime but at least I can kind of understand how someone on the edge of society, with poor or no education, etc. would see crime as a viable option, but someone that literally doesn’t need the money? Let him go with a symbolic punishment? I think that’d be worse.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#835

Post by SilverBirch »

hoschicz wrote: post #740

[flagged]

Sure, and we'll just trust that he'll be honest about what jobs he's doing and how much money he's earning. This is one of the lessons from the guy behind fyre festival - even whilst on bail he started another fraud. Yes it would be nice if we could put people on the naughty step when they've done something wrong, but we can't. Sam Bankman-friend is a convicted fraudster, the idea that given the chance of freedom that he'd do anything other than continue to commit fraud is kind of ridiculous.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#836

Post by trogdor »

itsoktocry wrote: post #822
paulgb wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good find, but worth noting that this is accusing him of front-running when what he actually did was dumber and more criminal: using FTX customer deposits to cover losses on the Alameda side.

> what he actually did No, what he was charged with was using customer funds. I'm sure they did all kinds of shady things, including front-running customers.

On what basis are you sure of that?

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#837

Post by totallyhuman »

meaningjoj wrote: post #716
bmitc wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The defense really had no option. Several of Bankman-Fried's previous defense teams quit on him due to his behavior. Even in this trial, during a session with just the judge, the defense made an objection to a question, the judge sustained it, but Bankman-Fried answered anyways. His own defense team asked him where had he been this entire trial because the objection was sustained, you didn't have to answer that. Bank…

This says something of culture of hubris that is so easily elevated to leadership positions in America's tech culture. It's nice to see one of these fail-bros get taken down. But two points remain. 1. Had they been able to sustain this Ponzi scheme to IPO, he would be celebrated as a tech-god, as opposed to facing hard time. 2. The VCs aren't required to disclose their sales of crypto. My guess is they made money of…

I'm somewhat out of the loop on this whole story -- can you explain how the IPO would have helped? What was his exit plan? My understanding of Ponzi schemes is that they always collapse eventually because everyone will want their money back sooner or later.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#838

Post by ncallaway »

josephd79 wrote: post #722
pclmulqdq wrote: post #720

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the AUSA's performance here was not particularly impressive. Yes, they constructed an airtight case, but to do that, they handed out immunity deals like candy to all of SBF's co-conspirators. Sure, they got their guy, but it almost looks like they wanted to craft a narrative that puts all of the blame on him. Because of that, several other huge fraudsters here (eg Carol…

I agree, didn't they admit they knew what they were doing? They should all do the same amount of time.

That would absolutely remove the incentive for anyone to cooperate with the government ever again.

Such a system would make it nearly impossible to proesecute the higher levels of a criminal enterprise.

It’s easy to prosecute the foot-soldiers of a criminal enterprise with outside evidence. The leadership of it typically requires testimony from others within the enterprise.

So, your approach of eliminating all benefits to criminal defendants for cooperating with the government would *massively* enable organized crime, and would end with a criminal justice system that comes down hard on the low-level members, while giving the organizers and planners a walk.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#839

Post by Ographer »

permo-w wrote: post #812
Ographer wrote: post #742

A reddit post called out SBF as a fraud 2 years ago and no one on the Bitcoin subreddit believed them! https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/p1oqqu/the_ceo_of_...

these subreddits are/were absolutely full to the brim with bots/adversarial actors. it's obvious after spending any time on them. the incentive to manipulate is just too high, and the ease with which to do it is too low

Exactly. Right now on the subreddit there is a post about how a guy plans to invest 2% of his net worth into bitcoin and most of the comments are mocking him for not investing 90-100%.

There is no such thing as skepticism or critical analysis on these subreddits. Obviously these commenters are already holders and have incentive to convince more people to buy. Like you said, I'm sure there are plenty of bots active in pushing their narrative with no consequences or accountability.

Whether crypto is useful or not, the market manipulation and ponzi-scheme recruiting tactics are too sleazy for me to invest seriously.

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