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For everyone on this thread making broad proclamations about how SBF won't go to jail because of American corruption--I'll see you back here in a year or two. T

For everyone on this thread making broad proclamations about how SBF won't go to jail because of American corruption--I'll see you back here in a year or two. Then we can have that conversation. In the meantime, I suggest that you consider whether you would reevaluate your priors in any meaningful way if, as I expect, SBF is ultimately prosecuted.

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__derek__ 4y ago
Well, it didn't take a year or two.[1] [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33962083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33962083
infiniteh00p 4y ago
For everyone on this thread making broad proclamations about how SBF will go to jail because of American justice--I'll see you back here in a year or two. Then we can have that conversation. In the meantime, I suggest that you consider whether you would reevaluate your priors in any meaningful way if, as I expect, SBF is ultimately not prosecuted.
- europeanguy 4y ago
  Don't you feel like a moron now?
- pdabbadabba 4y ago
  Deal!
  - SilasX 4y ago
    They have prediction markets for exactly this: https://manifold.markets/mr22222222/sbf-convicted-of-a-felony-before-20 https://manifold.markets/mr22222222/sbf-convicted-of-a-felon... (On Manifold, you can only donate winnings to charity rather than withdraw, which allows them to legally operate.)
- deleted 4y ago
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- warinukraine 4y ago
  Not the person you're responding to, but I would encourage you to read on the history of _fraud_ in the USA and how that usually turns out.
- bhouston 4y ago
  My bet is that he tries his hardest to never set foot on US soil again. He flees the Bahamas to a country without an extradition treaty and who also doesn't want to prosecute him -- the Bahamas likely does. So in a way, I think he may avoid prosecution, but not because of US corruption, but because he flees. This is also why SBF can not testify to congress in person as he will likely be arrested once on US soil as a flight risk. Also why he didn't attend the recent NYTimes event in person -- again he can not step foot on US soil right now or probably ever again.
  - eropple 4y ago
    Does he have enough actual-money to pull that off?
    - bhouston 4y ago
      Can't be very expensive, probably minimum is a few hundred thousand to get setup somewhere new. With billions missing and dozens of shell companies and various assets all over the place in his name (because FTX lent him personally 100s of millions if not more), I have to imagine he has a few million accessible.
  - notch656a 4y ago
    SBF can easily escape the first world and probably even the arm of the law. But what is life like for someone living outside the law who stole billions from angry people including likely many criminals? His life expectancy would not be long.
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- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  Though cute, this is a vacuous reply. The fact is, the US justice system is quite good at prosecuting white collar crimes where: 1. A lot of money was lost, especially rich people's money. 2. The fraud is particularly egregious, that is where it wasn't just a one time thing, but where the whole enterprise was a house of cards. 3. Where there is a clear smoking gun. 1 and 2 are obviously true in the FTX case, and I think given what has been reported so far that #3 will also be fairly apparent (e.g. there are tweets SBF made at the end of September that were lies that deliberately tried to hide the token movement between Alameda and FTX). I'd easily bet that SBF will, when all is said and done, spend at least a decade in jail.
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    Also SBF or FTX is not big existing financial institution with multiple layers of connections in network. His parent might be somewhat influential, but I don't think it goes too deep. And donations don't really matter if money doesn't keep coming.
ransom1538 4y ago
Let's not forget extradition is in Bahamian jurisdiction. The Bahamian politicians will most likely want their cut and stall extradition, and to do that they can either 1) shake down FTX leaders or 2) cut a deal with US extradition courts for cash. I don't see 2) working out since the case is so public. There wont be a snatch and grab either. I don't see a extradition until all the local cash is gone from FTX leaders and the Bahamians lose interest which could be years if not a decade. I bet the Bahamians already took FTX leaders passports and are seizing properties.
- user_named 4y ago
  You mean FTX, not SBF.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > You mean FTX, not SBF. SBF, the name of the visible head, is as good a collective label for the network of individual criminals and the many dozens of companies they used in their crimes as FTX, just one of the companies, is.
    - shkkmo 4y ago
      Except FTX is already a collective label, SBF is not. Using SBF as a collective is a confusing and incorrect. If you want to use it as part of a collective label, you could use "SBF & co.", "SBF et al" or similar conventions for creating a collective label from a singular one.
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  - ransom1538 4y ago
    gah fixed thanks
- Scoundreller 4y ago
  Yeah, Bahamas would definitely bend over backwards for the US. US blacklisting Bahamas with the various tools at its disposal isn’t worth it for Bahamas. (Cutting off preclearance, cutting off from US financial system, increasing visa/travel barriers for Bahamians)
fnands 4y ago
If Elizabeth Holmes is going to jail then SBF probably is too.
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- aliqot 4y ago
  - bhouston 4y ago
    She had similarly connected political board members: https://news.crunchbase.com/health-wellness-biotech/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-trial-investors-board/ https://news.crunchbase.com/health-wellness-biotech/theranos... Henry Kissinger (former United States Secretary of State); Jim Mattis (retired Marine Corps four-star general); George Shultz (former United States Secretary of State); Richard Kovacevich (former CEO of Wells Fargo); William Perry (former United States Secretary of Defense); William Foege (former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). She is like a little FTX in that sense. But I don't believe the Clintons' are uniquely corrupt, rather just as corrupt as similarly powerful US politicians. I am not a believer if QAnon conspiracies.
    - phone8675309 4y ago
      It’s always a good thing when someone screws over Kissinger. She should get a pardon just for that.
    - wutbrodo 4y ago
      I don't share GP's cynicism, but I think the argument would be that none of those people are "similarly powerful" to the Clintons.
ehhthing 4y ago
While FTX US did operate in the US, its finances were never nearly as fucked up as FTX (The Behamas company) was, especially with its relationship with Alameda.
warinukraine 4y ago
halpmeh 4y ago
Technically, updating priors wouldn't necessarily be warranted. Consider a statement X implies Y, e.g. The government is corrupt, which implies SBF won't go to jail. Just because X implies Y does not mean ~Y implies ~X. E.g. SBF going to jail does not imply the government is not corrupt.
- zopa 4y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraposition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraposition I imagine you’re remembering that P -> Q does not mean ~ P -> ~Q. That’s right, but you can absolutely get to ~Q -> ~P.
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- sebzim4500 4y ago
  Sure but it is a simple result in Bayesian statistics that if event X increases your confidence in fact Y then ~X should decrease your confidence in Y. For example, if SBF evading jail would increase your confidence in the statement "The US justice system is wholly corrupt" then SBF being sentenced should decrease your confidence in it.
  - shkkmo 4y ago
    We've seen enough examples of X to maintain confidence in Y. You need a lot more than a single ~X to significantly impact that assessment.
- quixoticaxolotl 4y ago
  I get what you mean, but I think you've formulated this incorrectly. Let P(Y) be your prior about government corruption. Let X be the event that SBF is arrested. You want to compute P(Y|X) using the Bayesian update formula and then set P(Y) = P(Y|X). That is what is meant by re-evaluating your priors. You're modelling X and Y as propositions and you're correct about the inference of ~X and ~Y, but Bayesian updating is about degree of belief in those propositions, which your inference is not a claim about.
dotnet00 4y ago
There are two main stages to get through, for him to go to jail and then for him to stay in jail long enough for it to not seem like a total farce. At this point, maybe the former will still happen considering that it's been a month and no one's forgotten about him yet, but the latter is still pretty questionable. Plus, if you were to ask me, I don't really have a specific sentence duration in mind which I would consider to be sufficiently long, so it would entirely come down to my takeaway from whatever the judge says. Eg if the judge gives him ~10 years stating that he did indeed intentionally fraud people out of $8B, it'd be okay. But on the other hand, if it seems like they're intentionally avoiding the obvious fraud to make his charges weaker, it obviously won't be satisfying.
- billjings 4y ago
  Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison. He died there, having served 11 years of his sentence.
  - dotnet00 4y ago
    In that case I'd certainly hope for more than 10 years. My 10 years number came from Elizabeth Holmes' sentence.
  - posterboy 4y ago
    The guy was called literally Made off (paraphrasing a comedian). I'm not a believer in QAnon conspiracies but this one is hilarious. Prison time won't bring back the money, meaning it is really just to satisfy a primitive urge for revenge. So what are you talking about, at that rate I won't do it, seems to work, see how it deterred SBF?!?
    - KMag 4y ago
      Some people feel that extreme sentences are deterrents, but studies show that people don't rationally calculate the expected value of their punishment. Almost nobody committing crimes thinks they'll get caught, so doubling jail time doesn't have much of a deterrent effect. Almost everyone who commits crimes while expecting to get caught is in desperate circumstances (near starvation, jail preferable to available housing, loved one in big trouble, etc.), where the time isn't a big deterrent, either. It's much more effective to increase (at least the perception) of the probability crimes will be caught and prosecuted. Excessive jail sentences presumably result in greater costs, meaning less money available on the investigation and prosecution side. (Yes, this makes faulty assumptions about how government budgeting works in practice.)
realist12 4y ago
panda-giddiness 4y ago
Not a lawyer, but I'll piggyback to say that the inevitable indictment will likely require proving criminal intent, specifically that SBF knowingly and willingly engaged in fraud. The Justice Department won't indict SFB until they have ironclad evidence demonstrating as much. Consider a rushed indictment: SBF can always invoke his right for a speedy trial (i.e., the prosecutors must be ready for trial within 6 months of indictment). The prosecution would thus be in the ineviable position of simultaneously gathering evidence and building the case. Alternatively, they could wait to indict until after they've gathered evidence, which will give them ample time to meticulously build a case against him. Since the harm of losing the case is greater than the harm of letting him roam free for a couple years, a delayed indictment seems like the clearly better option.
- bdangubic 4y ago
  -This did not age well :)
  - panda-giddiness 4y ago
    Ha! I guess I should've predicted a "couple days" instead of a "couple years". Still, I hope people now realize that "failure" to indict immediately is not the same as failure to indict.
- gizmo 4y ago
  Also, there is considerable career risk involved for the prosecutor. This is a high-profile case and the prosecutors can say goodbye to whatever ambitions they have if they botch this.
  - bobthepanda 4y ago
    Double jeopardy also means no one gets to try again if it's fucked up.
  - WandaVision 4y ago
    Please. Some partner in A16Z is already working on the term sheet of SBF's next startup.
dsfyu404ed 4y ago
My cynical take is that the fact that the well to do are screeching about how he won't go to jail all but ensures he will. The system always saves face. The ruling class needs the PMC to see the system as legitimate and they'll happily throw one of their own in jail to do it.
nowherebeen 4y ago
It took 7 years, from 2015 to 2022, to convict the Therano founders. What makes you think it will be concluded in 1-2 years? Update: Fixed the year (15 instead of 14)
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  That's an apples to oranges comparison. First, the WSJ article came out in 2015, and things didn't really start clamping down until 2016. In 2018 they were charged by the SEC. Nobody is saying the FTX saga will be concluded in 1-2 years, but it's quite reasonable to think the principals will have been indicted by then with legal proceedings underway.
  - nowherebeen 4y ago
    > Nobody is saying the FTX saga will be concluded in 1-2 years As per the original comment: > how SBF won't go to jail because of American corruption--I'll see you back here in a year or two. Going to jail implies he will be found guilty and it will be concluded. If SBF is only indicted, he is still innocent until proven guilty. > That's an apples to oranges comparison. Would like to know more about this. I am not saying he won’t go to jail, but why would prosecutors be faster in indicting SBF? Lastly, I am caught off guard by how emotional you seem about wanting to demonstrate how efficient the US legal system is. I am not saying it isn’t, but 1-2 years to conclude (again per original comment) seems quick for any legal system.
    - tedunangst 4y ago
      You should include the next sentence in the quote. "Then we can have that conversation." I also think two years from now would be a better time to have the conversation about whether we believe SBF will go to jail. The trial certainly may take longer than that, but we'll have a better sense of which way the wind is blowing.
      - nowherebeen 4y ago
        Agree. For the record, I do think he is going to jail. The facts are probably there, I think the part that will be challenging is proving intent. Did he intentionally funnel money to his trading firm. Once they build a strong enough case, they will go after him.
EamonnMR 4y ago
Seeing SBF and saying 'look how corrupt America/NYT is' feels like deflection from the more obvious 'look how corrupt Crypto is.'
- throwaway1777 4y ago
  Don’t know why this is downvoted, it could be true.
- siftrics 4y ago
  If FTX was on chain, SBF could not have absconded with users' deposits. Crypto mathematically prevents fraud. The problem here is that business was conducted in the fiat world and on a "trust me" basis.
  - scottLobster 4y ago
    Sure he could have, it just might have been spotted sooner. How many pump-and-dump shitcoins have there been to date? If "Crypto" has proven anything over the last few years the only thing it mathematically prevents is reversing transactions, which is really useful when you want to steal money.
  - ip26 4y ago
    I’m a crypto skeptic so I may be missing something. This sounds impossible. If users deposit to a wallet SBF has control of, he can fraud all he likes. It’s mathematically his money now. If users deposit but retain control of the wallet, it axiomatically isn’t a deposit.
    - squirtlebonflow 4y ago
      It is possible to have: * A contract (a piece of software) hosted on the network * This contract is immutable (its code cannot be changed) * This contract defines rules such as allowing deposits, withdrawals, and trades, and those functions of withdrawing deposits or enacting trades require transactions signed by the depositor In that scenario, it is a deposit, is controlled (and thus owned, both legally and cryptographically) by the users. In real life, these contracts are generally mutable, so there is the possibility that users can still get fucked over.
cm2187 4y ago
The problem isn't whether he will be prosecuted, but for what. His play right now seems to be playing dumb. I don't know if it can work, but he still needs to build a credible alternative story to the criminal behaviour that many here seem to suspect, for the different parties who seem to be happy to keep supporting him.
- dougSF70 4y ago
  They will probably start lower down the organization, getting evidence that wrongful behavior was sanctioned by management. Ignorance of the law is not a defence. He will go to jail.
  - _jal 4y ago
    Yep. The perils of thinking you're the smartest guy in the room. He apparently didn't even think to set up a victim to take the fall. Retroactively blaming his girlfriend will probably doom her, but isn't doing him any good.
- kosievdmerwe 4y ago
  Probably not that easy to play dumb if you set up a corporate structure involving a hundred different companies. I don't imagine a jury would see that level of unfathomable complexity and think "clearly a guy in over his head".
- politician 4y ago
  It was BAU to process all withdrawals from a single source of funds! FTX had risk officers, they had a legal team. Whoever signed off on this, including SBF, needs to be prosecuted.
- paulusthe 4y ago
  It can't work; there are documents. This stuff is always found in documents. In Madoff's case, aside his confession, they had the original financial documents and the ones manually edited by Madoff which were given to investors. That was sufficient to prove that he knew the truth and was defrauding his investors. Somewhere in the terabytes of internal emails, screenshots, and discord logs there will be something showing that SBF knew what he was doing, even if it shows up in a completely unforeseen way.
scottLobster 4y ago
I think part of it is people not following his latest interviews. I was one of those thinking he wouldn't spend a day in jail, however he then proceeded to open his mouth and, in public interviews (Twitter spaces in particular) on the record admitted to a whole host of crimes. Coffeezilla in particular has done excellent work (NYTimes, WaPo, a youtuber with no budget is doing better investigative journalism than you): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o_jPzBZSIo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o_jPzBZSIo It would be like if Epstein just came out on a public interview and said "yeah I hosted a pedophile ring for global elites as part of a CIA operation to get dirt on foreign nationals, in particular these ones: <insert list of names> but I didn't know what I was doing!" I don't see how SBF can walk back all of his very public admissions to date. "Oh I was lying in all of those just to troll the internet", but then he can't make any statement in his own defense. He must really be one of those liars who believes his own bullshit, that's the only explanation for his behavior. He's totally going to jail at this point
- paulusthe 4y ago
  SBF is incredibly, blindingly, arrogant. He thinks he can secure his freedom by proclaiming incompetence to anyone who will listen, but along the way happens to occasionally admit doing some very illegal things.
  - ocdtrekkie 4y ago
    I imagine he is running his mouth in every ill-advised way possible so that when he goes to trial his lawyer can argue he is way too stupid to have knowingly committed a crime.
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      Thankfully stupidity is even less a defense for crime than ignorance.
  - lordfrito 4y ago
    I feel like we're looking at a new type of narcissism and sociopathy, a generation whose criminals were weaned on social media and virtue signaling. Same old grift, adapted and weaponized in new forms for the digital era.
bgitarts 4y ago
How would you evaluate your priors if he is prosecuted, convicted and then given a presidential pardon?
- macintux 4y ago
  > ...then given a presidential pardon? I'd go online to see if I could find someone to take a wager on that, but that's such easy money I doubt I'd get odds worth it. I'd lay $1000 against that happening, and I don't have $1000 to spend lightly.
  - salawat 4y ago
    ...I might counterparty that, just because Michael frigging Liberty got one, and if I did, Murphy would almost surely conspire to keep it from happening, on account of the favorable outcome for me at stake. Then again, I try not to tempt those that should not be tempted.
- pdabbadabba 4y ago
  Dramatically.
- Cipater 4y ago
  I'd set my priors on fire and throw them in the trash.
anon7725 4y ago
His parents are both big shot lawyers who were fairly involved in the whole thing, right? I would be seriously and pleasantly surprised if dude does a day behind bars.
- peanuty1 4y ago
  Yes, they're both Stanford law professors and compliance lawyers. In fact, he was born at Stanford.
  - testfoobar 4y ago
    Valuable Bahamanian property was apparently in their names: https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-bankman-frieds-ftx-parents-bought-bahamas-property-worth-121-mln-2022-11-22/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-bankman-frieds-...
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throwaway1777 4y ago
Elizabeth Holmes got 11 years. There’s hope.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  I would still like to know how that all played out. There were credible predictions that the federal sentencing formulas would put her away for life. For next time, I'd be interested in knowing why those predictions were wrong.
  - evancox100 4y ago
    Maybe those predictions simply weren't as credible as you thought? Federal wire fraud (and conspiracy to commit the same) has a maximum sentence length of 20 years. I guess she could have gotten 80 years if all 4 convictions were ordered to be served consecutively. I don't know how common consecutive senteces are vs concurrent. In federal prison you can only parole at a maximum the last 15% of sentence, so she well serve the majority of the time (if held up on appeal etc., etc.)
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Right. She wasn't convicted on the non-wire fraud counts. You may think that's wrong but it's what the jury concluded and I don't think we generally want judges effectively making their own decision to unduly punish defendants because the judge thinks they "got off" on some other charge.
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      > Maybe those predictions simply weren't as credible as you thought? They were made by people with solid credentials in the legal field. My guess is that in the end they dropped a bunch of charges to levels that would skate under the multipliers, or she simply wasn't convicted on the ones that had big multipliers. But since I am not the lawyer, that is my non-credible speculation.
- coldtea 4y ago
  Black guys have gotten more for stealing a pizza or something...
somrand0 4y ago
this is reminiscent of that time I heard that South Korea had prosecuted and found an ex-president[1] guilty of crimes! There was a Samsung VIP involved too. [2,3] I was quite impressed because putting ex-presidents on trial is (was?) illegal in my own country! (there was a referendum recently, but I'd need to look up the outcome of that, no ex-presidents are on trial as far as I know) I'm telling this because 'recently', they overturned that ruling. so even if he goes to jail, let's wait 3 or 4 more years after any public rulings to check if he's been pardoned. There was a Samsung VIP involved too. [2,3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Geun-hye#Pardon_and_release_from_prison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Geun-hye#Pardon_and_relea... [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55674712 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55674712 [3] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/samsung-heir-lands-presidential-pardon-for-bribery-conviction/ar-AA10BDrV https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/samsung-heir-lands-pres...
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  To be fair, when you learn that South Korea has prosecuted and convicted most of it's ex-presidents (also one assassination and one suicide)... I'm not sure it makes South Korea look uncorrupt. It makes me figure some combination of routine corruption in the presidency and corrupt political retribution by successors. https://apnews.com/article/f4de2c758f70450583bdf1539e3fa3bd https://apnews.com/article/f4de2c758f70450583bdf1539e3fa3bd
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  - blue039 4y ago
    > To be fair, when you learn that South Korea has prosecuted and convicted most of it's ex-presidents (also one assassination and one suicide)... I'm not sure it makes South Korea look uncorrupt. Or, alternatively, they realize it's impossible to run a country and not be corrupt. Then, all "presidents" are actually defacto dictators. Not too far off the reality of the matter...perhaps the US should get on this train.
    - 4y ago
soheil 4y ago
I don't think anyone can make any proclamation as what will happen without the evidence, which neither you or anyone else other than investigators will have access to. On top of that a jury has to find him guilty again not you or almost certainly anyone else here. If you're making a statement about the American judicial system as a whole (pro or con) you're very much generalizing based on the outcome of one case. Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced to jail. Adam Neumann was not. Without the evidence we're just hypothesizing, as far as I'm concerned justice could have been served in both cases, I simply don't know and I doubt most people who are so eager to take one side or another truly care deeply enough to actually go through the entirety of those two past cases and look at all the legal arguments and details of the case (which is all public) before reaching a conclusion.
- ghaff 4y ago
  My gut feel says to not believe his dumb kid act. But it's up to federal prosecutors to actually prove to a jury that he knowingly committed fraud or whatever charges they ultimately decide to bring.
RC_ITR 4y ago
It seems like everyone just ignores their ability to use the Internet in cases like this. Enron (a pretty good analogue since the same CEO is liquidation FTX) went under in 2001 and Ken Lay was indicted in 2004. Madoff only went to jail right away because he cooperated
- stingrae 4y ago
  This is exactly what I was going to point out. People seem to forget that these kinds of cases take a lot of time to build.
- somenameforme 4y ago
  The problem I have in this case is that many things are being reported which would be immediately indictable. Billions of dollars was misappropriated, which is a felony that could easily result in decades in prison. Billions more simple disappeared, and there was even a 'back door' in their software enabling unaccountable access of funds. And this all about the time that SBF was splashing around billions of dollars like beads at Mardi Gras - living extremely lavishly, and even trying to get in on Twitter for $3 billion. Bringing immediate charges against him on the low hanging fruit does not preclude later charging him with anything that may require further work. And it also helps snag him before he decides his little 'blame everybody else and get the corporate media (which I also "donated" to) to back me up' isn't working out and plays a disappearing act. He's a billionaire already living in the Bahamas who could easily spend the rest of his life behind bars. He is an extreme flight risk, yet the DoJ continues to hem and haw.
  - RC_ITR 4y ago
    >Bringing immediate charges against him on the low hanging fruit does not preclude later charging him with anything that may require further work. The US judicial system is always "one chance to convict (Double Jeopardy), many chances to appeal" and given the whole 'speedy trial' thing (The Feds get about 2 months), building a case is the only reasonable solution before charging him. Again, the Feds need to convince a jury beyond a shadow of a doubt that Sam did this (not that it was done, that Sam did this) People seem to thing we can let him sit in jail indefinitely pre-trial while we collect the documents and facts, but the Constitution is pretty aggressive about that and no-one even knows what happened yet (not even SBF per his own claims). A prosecutor can't just point towards ambiguous bad things that happened, they need iron-clad facts that a defense team can't poke holes in (even if those holes are only a shadow of a doubt). >plays a disappearing act. I mean, sure, there's always flight risk, but to where? Russia? I mean it "worked" for Snowden I guess, but obviously different circumstances there. China? They banned crypto, so I doubt they want him potentially stirring up economic tumult there. Pretty much anywhere else? The US has an extradition treaty and I doubt SBF is going to settle into a quiet life of hiding given his current behavior. >He's a billionaire This is always such a funny thing people say about others. Liquidity matters. Even if Sam has access to hidden billions of liquid crypto, then what? He sells it in secret and secretly buys a yacht from a company that's not worried about having those funds seized by the US Gov't? He can't make any meaningful purchase, other than legal defense, because any counter-party will know that the funds are at risk for seizure (since they are ill-gotten). It's the same as Putin, like sure Russia's national wealth is his, but what's he gonna spend it on? The palaces he already lives in? And then by that measure, isn't the current US President probably the wealthiest person (Say what you will, but no amount of money is going to give MBS the power to launch a nuke if he wants). >He is an extreme flight risk, yet the DoJ continues to hem and haw. Again, can you really be a flight risk if you're already not in the US's jurisdiction?
newsclues 4y ago
I think he will eventually be appointed to the of the board for the Federal Reserve. Maybe even chairman!
roland35 4y ago
It hasn't even been a month since FTX collapsed. That's like milliseconds in legal time!
- eastbound 4y ago
  In France there is preventive prison - When the guy obviously did something and it will be offset on the final prison time. Is there anything similar in USA? Only for violent crime maybe?
  - jacobr1 4y ago
    Jail. Prison is for the convicted.
  - noelsusman 4y ago
    Yes, but only after you're formally charged. The prosecutors have to build their case before that happens, which will likely take years. They're also more than happy to have SBF free and talking to the media right now. He's giving them so much useful evidence.
    - eastbound 4y ago
      Honestly, I’d be curious of the impact of this period on the criminal’s psychology, I bet it deeply exhausts their energy, knowing they’re basically in, only question is when and how much. No way to “enjoy” life with relatives or new friends, all avenues are closed, only thing you have is money and fear, and you read books about survival in prison. Perhaps try to make connections among judges and politicians to share your $34bn. The longer this period lasts, I really wonder whether it destroys the individual just as much as prison time. Waiting for a trial would destroy me, as an innocent.
  - Pxtl 4y ago
    In the US that's called "remanded without bail". In the US when you're arrested you go to jail (which is distinct from prison, which is for long-term convicts). When a person is arrested in the USA, one of the first courts is the "Bail Hearing" which determines how the accused person will be kept until their trial. They may be sent home, or given a GPS ankle-monitor, or they may be told they have to pay a large "bail bond", which is a deposit that they will lose if they fail to show up for trial and they will get the money back after the trial, or they may be just taken to jail until the conviction if the judge thinks they're too dangerous.
HWR_14 4y ago
There's also the very real question of if the Bahamas want to lock him up first. Since they've been trying to promote themselves as the place to base a crypto business, it makes good marketing sense for them to punish him severely. If they do, the next wave of crypto banks being "based in the Bahamas" could be a sign of legal safety.
paulusthe 4y ago
He's definitely getting prosecuted. It just takes DoJ a long time to build cases, especially financial cases, because the burden of being able to convince a jury that something intentionally malevolent happened as opposed to simply incompetent. To Molly White's point, SBF is essentially walking around shouting "I was incompetent! Very very incompetent!" In an attempt to make that, as opposed to his clear fraud, the narrative.
wnevets 4y ago
> For everyone on this thread making broad proclamations about how SBF won't go to jail because of American corruption People are forgetting he stole money from rich people, the worst crime imaginable in America. If instead he made billions killing poor people either by selling them highly addictive drugs or by poisoning their drinking supply his company would be hit with a fine.
- themitigating 4y ago
  Can you provide an example in which a crime was committed by selling addictive drugs or poisoning water supplies? If you are alluding to pain killers, those were approved for use so whether or not the company knew they were addictive is a moral question not a legal one. A massive fine was also leveed against Purdue. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-global-resolution-criminal-and-civil-investigations-opioid https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-... As for the water, I assume you mean Flint? What crime was committed?
  - munificent 4y ago
    > Can you provide an example in which a crime was committed by selling addictive drugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purdue_Pharma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purdue_Pharma
dccoolgai 4y ago
This belief seems to be especially pervasive amongst tech industry: That because justice/law works at a slower speed than social media, it doesn't work.
Overtonwindow 4y ago
I still wait for Elizabeth Holmes to go to jail. I disagree that SBF will go to jail. American justice has a problem in that some people are just too rich, too connected, and too "pretty" to jail.
flumpcakes 4y ago
It will be a very interesting few years. I assume there's a lot less regulations for "cryto exchanges" than for any of the traditional finance companies. Perhaps SBF will skirt jail because of less regulations? Perhaps the "establishment" and traditional finance companies will use this as an opportunity to dismantle the "crypto" industry (and jail SBF for a long time) through regulations to beat down competition. I don't see why people thought SBF and FTX was any different from any other billion dollar finance company. The old men in suits were young men in suits at some point. BlackRock, with it's trillions of dollars under management, is only 34 years old. There wasn't any change or a new era that was going to be ushered in by FTX/SBF. Just more financial crime, how long would have it gone unpunished if it wasn't for their own incompetence?
olalonde 4y ago
American corruption aside, why does everyone expect the US to lead the prosecution of SBF? FTX was an international exchange. He could and should face criminal charges in dozens of countries.
- pvarangot 4y ago
  There was a US branch of FTX that SBF has been saying "has funds to make people whole" but is still under Chapter 11 "because he made a mistake declaring bankruptcy", and that branch in independent of the international exchange. US customers still can't withdraw their funds. I am not sure people want the US to "lead" everything as much as they want, as people that invested money on a US company, for the government to help them get it back after it was, allegedly, stolen.
- jklein11 4y ago
  Because nobody can put the boot on this kids neck like the US Government
  - PaulHoule 4y ago
    If you think the government in the US is corrupt and incompetent you should go look at the governments in other countries.
__MatrixMan__ 4y ago
I don't think the crypto world is patient enough to let the government (any government) handle things. So since we're making predictions: if no government acts within a year, I bet he'll be dead within three. I think they call that "slashing".
j4pe 4y ago
I actually registered a bet regarding his eventual conviction: https://longbets.org/922/ https://longbets.org/922/ I was bothered by the level of rhetoric from high-profile people in technology predicting that the US justice system would never pursue SBF, because these claims seem to smuggle in the conspiracy that the US government is controlled by some cabal or hidden element. While of course the US government has many problems, these insinuations don't represent a serious take on the issue, and this FTX debacle seems to be simply a convenient opportunity for "network state" or techno-libertarian proponents to promulgate some more damaging untruths into an already poisoned information environment. Nobody has yet taken me up on the bet.
mehphp 4y ago
He will definitely go to jail. He’s not a high-profile politician and he has harmed other rich people.
theptip 4y ago
This is one of those cases where “put your (play) money where your mouth is” / “skin in the game” really shines. Anyone who wants to prognosticate on this subject should record their prediction on Metaculus or similar, and link to it. Anyone not going on record thusly should shut up.

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__derek__ 4y ago

Well, it didn't take a year or two.[1] [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33962083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33962083

infiniteh00p 4y ago

For everyone on this thread making broad proclamations about how SBF will go to jail because of American justice--I'll see you back here in a year or two. Then we can have that conversation. In the meantime, I suggest that you consider whether you would reevaluate your priors in any meaningful way if, as I expect, SBF is ultimately not prosecuted.

europeanguy 4y ago
Don't you feel like a moron now?
pdabbadabba 4y ago
Deal!
- SilasX 4y ago
  They have prediction markets for exactly this: https://manifold.markets/mr22222222/sbf-convicted-of-a-felony-before-20 https://manifold.markets/mr22222222/sbf-convicted-of-a-felon... (On Manifold, you can only donate winnings to charity rather than withdraw, which allows them to legally operate.)
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warinukraine 4y ago
Not the person you're responding to, but I would encourage you to read on the history of _fraud_ in the USA and how that usually turns out.
bhouston 4y ago
My bet is that he tries his hardest to never set foot on US soil again. He flees the Bahamas to a country without an extradition treaty and who also doesn't want to prosecute him -- the Bahamas likely does. So in a way, I think he may avoid prosecution, but not because of US corruption, but because he flees. This is also why SBF can not testify to congress in person as he will likely be arrested once on US soil as a flight risk. Also why he didn't attend the recent NYTimes event in person -- again he can not step foot on US soil right now or probably ever again.
- eropple 4y ago
  Does he have enough actual-money to pull that off?
  - bhouston 4y ago
    Can't be very expensive, probably minimum is a few hundred thousand to get setup somewhere new. With billions missing and dozens of shell companies and various assets all over the place in his name (because FTX lent him personally 100s of millions if not more), I have to imagine he has a few million accessible.
- notch656a 4y ago
  SBF can easily escape the first world and probably even the arm of the law. But what is life like for someone living outside the law who stole billions from angry people including likely many criminals? His life expectancy would not be long.
- deleted 4y ago
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hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
Though cute, this is a vacuous reply. The fact is, the US justice system is quite good at prosecuting white collar crimes where: 1. A lot of money was lost, especially rich people's money. 2. The fraud is particularly egregious, that is where it wasn't just a one time thing, but where the whole enterprise was a house of cards. 3. Where there is a clear smoking gun. 1 and 2 are obviously true in the FTX case, and I think given what has been reported so far that #3 will also be fairly apparent (e.g. there are tweets SBF made at the end of September that were lies that deliberately tried to hide the token movement between Alameda and FTX). I'd easily bet that SBF will, when all is said and done, spend at least a decade in jail.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Also SBF or FTX is not big existing financial institution with multiple layers of connections in network. His parent might be somewhat influential, but I don't think it goes too deep. And donations don't really matter if money doesn't keep coming.

ransom1538 4y ago

Let's not forget extradition is in Bahamian jurisdiction. The Bahamian politicians will most likely want their cut and stall extradition, and to do that they can either 1) shake down FTX leaders or 2) cut a deal with US extradition courts for cash. I don't see 2) working out since the case is so public. There wont be a snatch and grab either. I don't see a extradition until all the local cash is gone from FTX leaders and the Bahamians lose interest which could be years if not a decade. I bet the Bahamians already took FTX leaders passports and are seizing properties.

user_named 4y ago
You mean FTX, not SBF.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > You mean FTX, not SBF. SBF, the name of the visible head, is as good a collective label for the network of individual criminals and the many dozens of companies they used in their crimes as FTX, just one of the companies, is.
  - shkkmo 4y ago
    Except FTX is already a collective label, SBF is not. Using SBF as a collective is a confusing and incorrect. If you want to use it as part of a collective label, you could use "SBF & co.", "SBF et al" or similar conventions for creating a collective label from a singular one.
    - deleted 4y ago
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- ransom1538 4y ago
  gah fixed thanks
Scoundreller 4y ago
Yeah, Bahamas would definitely bend over backwards for the US. US blacklisting Bahamas with the various tools at its disposal isn’t worth it for Bahamas. (Cutting off preclearance, cutting off from US financial system, increasing visa/travel barriers for Bahamians)

fnands 4y ago

If Elizabeth Holmes is going to jail then SBF probably is too.

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- deleted 4y ago
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aliqot 4y ago
- bhouston 4y ago
  She had similarly connected political board members: https://news.crunchbase.com/health-wellness-biotech/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-trial-investors-board/ https://news.crunchbase.com/health-wellness-biotech/theranos... Henry Kissinger (former United States Secretary of State); Jim Mattis (retired Marine Corps four-star general); George Shultz (former United States Secretary of State); Richard Kovacevich (former CEO of Wells Fargo); William Perry (former United States Secretary of Defense); William Foege (former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). She is like a little FTX in that sense. But I don't believe the Clintons' are uniquely corrupt, rather just as corrupt as similarly powerful US politicians. I am not a believer if QAnon conspiracies.
  - phone8675309 4y ago
    It’s always a good thing when someone screws over Kissinger. She should get a pardon just for that.
  - wutbrodo 4y ago
    I don't share GP's cynicism, but I think the argument would be that none of those people are "similarly powerful" to the Clintons.

ehhthing 4y ago

While FTX US did operate in the US, its finances were never nearly as fucked up as FTX (The Behamas company) was, especially with its relationship with Alameda.

warinukraine 4y ago

halpmeh 4y ago

Technically, updating priors wouldn't necessarily be warranted. Consider a statement X implies Y, e.g. The government is corrupt, which implies SBF won't go to jail. Just because X implies Y does not mean ~Y implies ~X. E.g. SBF going to jail does not imply the government is not corrupt.

zopa 4y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraposition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraposition I imagine you’re remembering that P -> Q does not mean ~ P -> ~Q. That’s right, but you can absolutely get to ~Q -> ~P.
- deleted 4y ago
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sebzim4500 4y ago
Sure but it is a simple result in Bayesian statistics that if event X increases your confidence in fact Y then ~X should decrease your confidence in Y. For example, if SBF evading jail would increase your confidence in the statement "The US justice system is wholly corrupt" then SBF being sentenced should decrease your confidence in it.
- shkkmo 4y ago
  We've seen enough examples of X to maintain confidence in Y. You need a lot more than a single ~X to significantly impact that assessment.
quixoticaxolotl 4y ago
I get what you mean, but I think you've formulated this incorrectly. Let P(Y) be your prior about government corruption. Let X be the event that SBF is arrested. You want to compute P(Y|X) using the Bayesian update formula and then set P(Y) = P(Y|X). That is what is meant by re-evaluating your priors. You're modelling X and Y as propositions and you're correct about the inference of ~X and ~Y, but Bayesian updating is about degree of belief in those propositions, which your inference is not a claim about.

dotnet00 4y ago

There are two main stages to get through, for him to go to jail and then for him to stay in jail long enough for it to not seem like a total farce. At this point, maybe the former will still happen considering that it's been a month and no one's forgotten about him yet, but the latter is still pretty questionable. Plus, if you were to ask me, I don't really have a specific sentence duration in mind which I would consider to be sufficiently long, so it would entirely come down to my takeaway from whatever the judge says. Eg if the judge gives him ~10 years stating that he did indeed intentionally fraud people out of $8B, it'd be okay. But on the other hand, if it seems like they're intentionally avoiding the obvious fraud to make his charges weaker, it obviously won't be satisfying.

billjings 4y ago
Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison. He died there, having served 11 years of his sentence.
- dotnet00 4y ago
  In that case I'd certainly hope for more than 10 years. My 10 years number came from Elizabeth Holmes' sentence.
- posterboy 4y ago
  The guy was called literally Made off (paraphrasing a comedian). I'm not a believer in QAnon conspiracies but this one is hilarious. Prison time won't bring back the money, meaning it is really just to satisfy a primitive urge for revenge. So what are you talking about, at that rate I won't do it, seems to work, see how it deterred SBF?!?
  - KMag 4y ago
    Some people feel that extreme sentences are deterrents, but studies show that people don't rationally calculate the expected value of their punishment. Almost nobody committing crimes thinks they'll get caught, so doubling jail time doesn't have much of a deterrent effect. Almost everyone who commits crimes while expecting to get caught is in desperate circumstances (near starvation, jail preferable to available housing, loved one in big trouble, etc.), where the time isn't a big deterrent, either. It's much more effective to increase (at least the perception) of the probability crimes will be caught and prosecuted. Excessive jail sentences presumably result in greater costs, meaning less money available on the investigation and prosecution side. (Yes, this makes faulty assumptions about how government budgeting works in practice.)

realist12 4y ago

panda-giddiness 4y ago

Not a lawyer, but I'll piggyback to say that the inevitable indictment will likely require proving criminal intent, specifically that SBF knowingly and willingly engaged in fraud. The Justice Department won't indict SFB until they have ironclad evidence demonstrating as much. Consider a rushed indictment: SBF can always invoke his right for a speedy trial (i.e., the prosecutors must be ready for trial within 6 months of indictment). The prosecution would thus be in the ineviable position of simultaneously gathering evidence and building the case. Alternatively, they could wait to indict until after they've gathered evidence, which will give them ample time to meticulously build a case against him. Since the harm of losing the case is greater than the harm of letting him roam free for a couple years, a delayed indictment seems like the clearly better option.

bdangubic 4y ago
-This did not age well :)
- panda-giddiness 4y ago
  Ha! I guess I should've predicted a "couple days" instead of a "couple years". Still, I hope people now realize that "failure" to indict immediately is not the same as failure to indict.
gizmo 4y ago
Also, there is considerable career risk involved for the prosecutor. This is a high-profile case and the prosecutors can say goodbye to whatever ambitions they have if they botch this.
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  Double jeopardy also means no one gets to try again if it's fucked up.
- WandaVision 4y ago
  Please. Some partner in A16Z is already working on the term sheet of SBF's next startup.

dsfyu404ed 4y ago

My cynical take is that the fact that the well to do are screeching about how he won't go to jail all but ensures he will. The system always saves face. The ruling class needs the PMC to see the system as legitimate and they'll happily throw one of their own in jail to do it.

nowherebeen 4y ago

It took 7 years, from 2015 to 2022, to convict the Therano founders. What makes you think it will be concluded in 1-2 years? Update: Fixed the year (15 instead of 14)

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
That's an apples to oranges comparison. First, the WSJ article came out in 2015, and things didn't really start clamping down until 2016. In 2018 they were charged by the SEC. Nobody is saying the FTX saga will be concluded in 1-2 years, but it's quite reasonable to think the principals will have been indicted by then with legal proceedings underway.
- nowherebeen 4y ago
  > Nobody is saying the FTX saga will be concluded in 1-2 years As per the original comment: > how SBF won't go to jail because of American corruption--I'll see you back here in a year or two. Going to jail implies he will be found guilty and it will be concluded. If SBF is only indicted, he is still innocent until proven guilty. > That's an apples to oranges comparison. Would like to know more about this. I am not saying he won’t go to jail, but why would prosecutors be faster in indicting SBF? Lastly, I am caught off guard by how emotional you seem about wanting to demonstrate how efficient the US legal system is. I am not saying it isn’t, but 1-2 years to conclude (again per original comment) seems quick for any legal system.
  - tedunangst 4y ago
    You should include the next sentence in the quote. "Then we can have that conversation." I also think two years from now would be a better time to have the conversation about whether we believe SBF will go to jail. The trial certainly may take longer than that, but we'll have a better sense of which way the wind is blowing.
    - nowherebeen 4y ago
      Agree. For the record, I do think he is going to jail. The facts are probably there, I think the part that will be challenging is proving intent. Did he intentionally funnel money to his trading firm. Once they build a strong enough case, they will go after him.

EamonnMR 4y ago

Seeing SBF and saying 'look how corrupt America/NYT is' feels like deflection from the more obvious 'look how corrupt Crypto is.'

throwaway1777 4y ago
Don’t know why this is downvoted, it could be true.
siftrics 4y ago
If FTX was on chain, SBF could not have absconded with users' deposits. Crypto mathematically prevents fraud. The problem here is that business was conducted in the fiat world and on a "trust me" basis.
- scottLobster 4y ago
  Sure he could have, it just might have been spotted sooner. How many pump-and-dump shitcoins have there been to date? If "Crypto" has proven anything over the last few years the only thing it mathematically prevents is reversing transactions, which is really useful when you want to steal money.
- ip26 4y ago
  I’m a crypto skeptic so I may be missing something. This sounds impossible. If users deposit to a wallet SBF has control of, he can fraud all he likes. It’s mathematically his money now. If users deposit but retain control of the wallet, it axiomatically isn’t a deposit.
  - squirtlebonflow 4y ago
    It is possible to have: * A contract (a piece of software) hosted on the network * This contract is immutable (its code cannot be changed) * This contract defines rules such as allowing deposits, withdrawals, and trades, and those functions of withdrawing deposits or enacting trades require transactions signed by the depositor In that scenario, it is a deposit, is controlled (and thus owned, both legally and cryptographically) by the users. In real life, these contracts are generally mutable, so there is the possibility that users can still get fucked over.

cm2187 4y ago

The problem isn't whether he will be prosecuted, but for what. His play right now seems to be playing dumb. I don't know if it can work, but he still needs to build a credible alternative story to the criminal behaviour that many here seem to suspect, for the different parties who seem to be happy to keep supporting him.

dougSF70 4y ago
They will probably start lower down the organization, getting evidence that wrongful behavior was sanctioned by management. Ignorance of the law is not a defence. He will go to jail.
- _jal 4y ago
  Yep. The perils of thinking you're the smartest guy in the room. He apparently didn't even think to set up a victim to take the fall. Retroactively blaming his girlfriend will probably doom her, but isn't doing him any good.
kosievdmerwe 4y ago
Probably not that easy to play dumb if you set up a corporate structure involving a hundred different companies. I don't imagine a jury would see that level of unfathomable complexity and think "clearly a guy in over his head".
politician 4y ago
It was BAU to process all withdrawals from a single source of funds! FTX had risk officers, they had a legal team. Whoever signed off on this, including SBF, needs to be prosecuted.
paulusthe 4y ago
It can't work; there are documents. This stuff is always found in documents. In Madoff's case, aside his confession, they had the original financial documents and the ones manually edited by Madoff which were given to investors. That was sufficient to prove that he knew the truth and was defrauding his investors. Somewhere in the terabytes of internal emails, screenshots, and discord logs there will be something showing that SBF knew what he was doing, even if it shows up in a completely unforeseen way.

scottLobster 4y ago

I think part of it is people not following his latest interviews. I was one of those thinking he wouldn't spend a day in jail, however he then proceeded to open his mouth and, in public interviews (Twitter spaces in particular) on the record admitted to a whole host of crimes. Coffeezilla in particular has done excellent work (NYTimes, WaPo, a youtuber with no budget is doing better investigative journalism than you): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o_jPzBZSIo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o_jPzBZSIo It would be like if Epstein just came out on a public interview and said "yeah I hosted a pedophile ring for global elites as part of a CIA operation to get dirt on foreign nationals, in particular these ones: <insert list of names> but I didn't know what I was doing!" I don't see how SBF can walk back all of his very public admissions to date. "Oh I was lying in all of those just to troll the internet", but then he can't make any statement in his own defense. He must really be one of those liars who believes his own bullshit, that's the only explanation for his behavior. He's totally going to jail at this point

paulusthe 4y ago
SBF is incredibly, blindingly, arrogant. He thinks he can secure his freedom by proclaiming incompetence to anyone who will listen, but along the way happens to occasionally admit doing some very illegal things.
- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  I imagine he is running his mouth in every ill-advised way possible so that when he goes to trial his lawyer can argue he is way too stupid to have knowingly committed a crime.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    Thankfully stupidity is even less a defense for crime than ignorance.
- lordfrito 4y ago
  I feel like we're looking at a new type of narcissism and sociopathy, a generation whose criminals were weaned on social media and virtue signaling. Same old grift, adapted and weaponized in new forms for the digital era.

bgitarts 4y ago

How would you evaluate your priors if he is prosecuted, convicted and then given a presidential pardon?

macintux 4y ago
> ...then given a presidential pardon? I'd go online to see if I could find someone to take a wager on that, but that's such easy money I doubt I'd get odds worth it. I'd lay $1000 against that happening, and I don't have $1000 to spend lightly.
- salawat 4y ago
  ...I might counterparty that, just because Michael frigging Liberty got one, and if I did, Murphy would almost surely conspire to keep it from happening, on account of the favorable outcome for me at stake. Then again, I try not to tempt those that should not be tempted.
pdabbadabba 4y ago
Dramatically.
Cipater 4y ago
I'd set my priors on fire and throw them in the trash.

anon7725 4y ago

His parents are both big shot lawyers who were fairly involved in the whole thing, right? I would be seriously and pleasantly surprised if dude does a day behind bars.

peanuty1 4y ago
Yes, they're both Stanford law professors and compliance lawyers. In fact, he was born at Stanford.
- testfoobar 4y ago
  Valuable Bahamanian property was apparently in their names: https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-bankman-frieds-ftx-parents-bought-bahamas-property-worth-121-mln-2022-11-22/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-bankman-frieds-...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

throwaway1777 4y ago

Elizabeth Holmes got 11 years. There’s hope.

rootusrootus 4y ago
I would still like to know how that all played out. There were credible predictions that the federal sentencing formulas would put her away for life. For next time, I'd be interested in knowing why those predictions were wrong.
- evancox100 4y ago
  Maybe those predictions simply weren't as credible as you thought? Federal wire fraud (and conspiracy to commit the same) has a maximum sentence length of 20 years. I guess she could have gotten 80 years if all 4 convictions were ordered to be served consecutively. I don't know how common consecutive senteces are vs concurrent. In federal prison you can only parole at a maximum the last 15% of sentence, so she well serve the majority of the time (if held up on appeal etc., etc.)
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Right. She wasn't convicted on the non-wire fraud counts. You may think that's wrong but it's what the jury concluded and I don't think we generally want judges effectively making their own decision to unduly punish defendants because the judge thinks they "got off" on some other charge.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    > Maybe those predictions simply weren't as credible as you thought? They were made by people with solid credentials in the legal field. My guess is that in the end they dropped a bunch of charges to levels that would skate under the multipliers, or she simply wasn't convicted on the ones that had big multipliers. But since I am not the lawyer, that is my non-credible speculation.
coldtea 4y ago
Black guys have gotten more for stealing a pizza or something...

somrand0 4y ago

this is reminiscent of that time I heard that South Korea had prosecuted and found an ex-president[1] guilty of crimes! There was a Samsung VIP involved too. [2,3] I was quite impressed because putting ex-presidents on trial is (was?) illegal in my own country! (there was a referendum recently, but I'd need to look up the outcome of that, no ex-presidents are on trial as far as I know) I'm telling this because 'recently', they overturned that ruling. so even if he goes to jail, let's wait 3 or 4 more years after any public rulings to check if he's been pardoned. There was a Samsung VIP involved too. [2,3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Geun-hye#Pardon_and_release_from_prison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Geun-hye#Pardon_and_relea... [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55674712 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55674712 [3] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/samsung-heir-lands-presidential-pardon-for-bribery-conviction/ar-AA10BDrV https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/samsung-heir-lands-pres...

jrochkind1 4y ago
To be fair, when you learn that South Korea has prosecuted and convicted most of it's ex-presidents (also one assassination and one suicide)... I'm not sure it makes South Korea look uncorrupt. It makes me figure some combination of routine corruption in the presidency and corrupt political retribution by successors. https://apnews.com/article/f4de2c758f70450583bdf1539e3fa3bd https://apnews.com/article/f4de2c758f70450583bdf1539e3fa3bd
- deleted 4y ago
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- blue039 4y ago
  > To be fair, when you learn that South Korea has prosecuted and convicted most of it's ex-presidents (also one assassination and one suicide)... I'm not sure it makes South Korea look uncorrupt. Or, alternatively, they realize it's impossible to run a country and not be corrupt. Then, all "presidents" are actually defacto dictators. Not too far off the reality of the matter...perhaps the US should get on this train.
  - 4y ago

soheil 4y ago

I don't think anyone can make any proclamation as what will happen without the evidence, which neither you or anyone else other than investigators will have access to. On top of that a jury has to find him guilty again not you or almost certainly anyone else here. If you're making a statement about the American judicial system as a whole (pro or con) you're very much generalizing based on the outcome of one case. Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced to jail. Adam Neumann was not. Without the evidence we're just hypothesizing, as far as I'm concerned justice could have been served in both cases, I simply don't know and I doubt most people who are so eager to take one side or another truly care deeply enough to actually go through the entirety of those two past cases and look at all the legal arguments and details of the case (which is all public) before reaching a conclusion.

ghaff 4y ago
My gut feel says to not believe his dumb kid act. But it's up to federal prosecutors to actually prove to a jury that he knowingly committed fraud or whatever charges they ultimately decide to bring.

RC_ITR 4y ago

It seems like everyone just ignores their ability to use the Internet in cases like this. Enron (a pretty good analogue since the same CEO is liquidation FTX) went under in 2001 and Ken Lay was indicted in 2004. Madoff only went to jail right away because he cooperated

stingrae 4y ago
This is exactly what I was going to point out. People seem to forget that these kinds of cases take a lot of time to build.
somenameforme 4y ago
The problem I have in this case is that many things are being reported which would be immediately indictable. Billions of dollars was misappropriated, which is a felony that could easily result in decades in prison. Billions more simple disappeared, and there was even a 'back door' in their software enabling unaccountable access of funds. And this all about the time that SBF was splashing around billions of dollars like beads at Mardi Gras - living extremely lavishly, and even trying to get in on Twitter for $3 billion. Bringing immediate charges against him on the low hanging fruit does not preclude later charging him with anything that may require further work. And it also helps snag him before he decides his little 'blame everybody else and get the corporate media (which I also "donated" to) to back me up' isn't working out and plays a disappearing act. He's a billionaire already living in the Bahamas who could easily spend the rest of his life behind bars. He is an extreme flight risk, yet the DoJ continues to hem and haw.
- RC_ITR 4y ago
  >Bringing immediate charges against him on the low hanging fruit does not preclude later charging him with anything that may require further work. The US judicial system is always "one chance to convict (Double Jeopardy), many chances to appeal" and given the whole 'speedy trial' thing (The Feds get about 2 months), building a case is the only reasonable solution before charging him. Again, the Feds need to convince a jury beyond a shadow of a doubt that Sam did this (not that it was done, that Sam did this) People seem to thing we can let him sit in jail indefinitely pre-trial while we collect the documents and facts, but the Constitution is pretty aggressive about that and no-one even knows what happened yet (not even SBF per his own claims). A prosecutor can't just point towards ambiguous bad things that happened, they need iron-clad facts that a defense team can't poke holes in (even if those holes are only a shadow of a doubt). >plays a disappearing act. I mean, sure, there's always flight risk, but to where? Russia? I mean it "worked" for Snowden I guess, but obviously different circumstances there. China? They banned crypto, so I doubt they want him potentially stirring up economic tumult there. Pretty much anywhere else? The US has an extradition treaty and I doubt SBF is going to settle into a quiet life of hiding given his current behavior. >He's a billionaire This is always such a funny thing people say about others. Liquidity matters. Even if Sam has access to hidden billions of liquid crypto, then what? He sells it in secret and secretly buys a yacht from a company that's not worried about having those funds seized by the US Gov't? He can't make any meaningful purchase, other than legal defense, because any counter-party will know that the funds are at risk for seizure (since they are ill-gotten). It's the same as Putin, like sure Russia's national wealth is his, but what's he gonna spend it on? The palaces he already lives in? And then by that measure, isn't the current US President probably the wealthiest person (Say what you will, but no amount of money is going to give MBS the power to launch a nuke if he wants). >He is an extreme flight risk, yet the DoJ continues to hem and haw. Again, can you really be a flight risk if you're already not in the US's jurisdiction?

newsclues 4y ago

I think he will eventually be appointed to the of the board for the Federal Reserve. Maybe even chairman!

roland35 4y ago

It hasn't even been a month since FTX collapsed. That's like milliseconds in legal time!

eastbound 4y ago
In France there is preventive prison - When the guy obviously did something and it will be offset on the final prison time. Is there anything similar in USA? Only for violent crime maybe?
- jacobr1 4y ago
  Jail. Prison is for the convicted.
- noelsusman 4y ago
  Yes, but only after you're formally charged. The prosecutors have to build their case before that happens, which will likely take years. They're also more than happy to have SBF free and talking to the media right now. He's giving them so much useful evidence.
  - eastbound 4y ago
    Honestly, I’d be curious of the impact of this period on the criminal’s psychology, I bet it deeply exhausts their energy, knowing they’re basically in, only question is when and how much. No way to “enjoy” life with relatives or new friends, all avenues are closed, only thing you have is money and fear, and you read books about survival in prison. Perhaps try to make connections among judges and politicians to share your $34bn. The longer this period lasts, I really wonder whether it destroys the individual just as much as prison time. Waiting for a trial would destroy me, as an innocent.
- Pxtl 4y ago
  In the US that's called "remanded without bail". In the US when you're arrested you go to jail (which is distinct from prison, which is for long-term convicts). When a person is arrested in the USA, one of the first courts is the "Bail Hearing" which determines how the accused person will be kept until their trial. They may be sent home, or given a GPS ankle-monitor, or they may be told they have to pay a large "bail bond", which is a deposit that they will lose if they fail to show up for trial and they will get the money back after the trial, or they may be just taken to jail until the conviction if the judge thinks they're too dangerous.

HWR_14 4y ago

There's also the very real question of if the Bahamas want to lock him up first. Since they've been trying to promote themselves as the place to base a crypto business, it makes good marketing sense for them to punish him severely. If they do, the next wave of crypto banks being "based in the Bahamas" could be a sign of legal safety.

paulusthe 4y ago

He's definitely getting prosecuted. It just takes DoJ a long time to build cases, especially financial cases, because the burden of being able to convince a jury that something intentionally malevolent happened as opposed to simply incompetent. To Molly White's point, SBF is essentially walking around shouting "I was incompetent! Very very incompetent!" In an attempt to make that, as opposed to his clear fraud, the narrative.

wnevets 4y ago

> For everyone on this thread making broad proclamations about how SBF won't go to jail because of American corruption People are forgetting he stole money from rich people, the worst crime imaginable in America. If instead he made billions killing poor people either by selling them highly addictive drugs or by poisoning their drinking supply his company would be hit with a fine.

themitigating 4y ago
Can you provide an example in which a crime was committed by selling addictive drugs or poisoning water supplies? If you are alluding to pain killers, those were approved for use so whether or not the company knew they were addictive is a moral question not a legal one. A massive fine was also leveed against Purdue. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-global-resolution-criminal-and-civil-investigations-opioid https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-... As for the water, I assume you mean Flint? What crime was committed?
- munificent 4y ago
  > Can you provide an example in which a crime was committed by selling addictive drugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purdue_Pharma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purdue_Pharma

dccoolgai 4y ago

This belief seems to be especially pervasive amongst tech industry: That because justice/law works at a slower speed than social media, it doesn't work.

Overtonwindow 4y ago

I still wait for Elizabeth Holmes to go to jail. I disagree that SBF will go to jail. American justice has a problem in that some people are just too rich, too connected, and too "pretty" to jail.

flumpcakes 4y ago

It will be a very interesting few years. I assume there's a lot less regulations for "cryto exchanges" than for any of the traditional finance companies. Perhaps SBF will skirt jail because of less regulations? Perhaps the "establishment" and traditional finance companies will use this as an opportunity to dismantle the "crypto" industry (and jail SBF for a long time) through regulations to beat down competition. I don't see why people thought SBF and FTX was any different from any other billion dollar finance company. The old men in suits were young men in suits at some point. BlackRock, with it's trillions of dollars under management, is only 34 years old. There wasn't any change or a new era that was going to be ushered in by FTX/SBF. Just more financial crime, how long would have it gone unpunished if it wasn't for their own incompetence?

olalonde 4y ago

American corruption aside, why does everyone expect the US to lead the prosecution of SBF? FTX was an international exchange. He could and should face criminal charges in dozens of countries.

pvarangot 4y ago
There was a US branch of FTX that SBF has been saying "has funds to make people whole" but is still under Chapter 11 "because he made a mistake declaring bankruptcy", and that branch in independent of the international exchange. US customers still can't withdraw their funds. I am not sure people want the US to "lead" everything as much as they want, as people that invested money on a US company, for the government to help them get it back after it was, allegedly, stolen.
jklein11 4y ago
Because nobody can put the boot on this kids neck like the US Government
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  If you think the government in the US is corrupt and incompetent you should go look at the governments in other countries.

__MatrixMan__ 4y ago

I don't think the crypto world is patient enough to let the government (any government) handle things. So since we're making predictions: if no government acts within a year, I bet he'll be dead within three. I think they call that "slashing".

j4pe 4y ago

I actually registered a bet regarding his eventual conviction: https://longbets.org/922/ https://longbets.org/922/ I was bothered by the level of rhetoric from high-profile people in technology predicting that the US justice system would never pursue SBF, because these claims seem to smuggle in the conspiracy that the US government is controlled by some cabal or hidden element. While of course the US government has many problems, these insinuations don't represent a serious take on the issue, and this FTX debacle seems to be simply a convenient opportunity for "network state" or techno-libertarian proponents to promulgate some more damaging untruths into an already poisoned information environment. Nobody has yet taken me up on the bet.

mehphp 4y ago

He will definitely go to jail. He’s not a high-profile politician and he has harmed other rich people.

theptip 4y ago

This is one of those cases where “put your (play) money where your mouth is” / “skin in the game” really shines. Anyone who wants to prognosticate on this subject should record their prediction on Metaculus or similar, and link to it. Anyone not going on record thusly should shut up.