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How anyone could look at this man's behavior over the last few weeks and not think he was on a fast track to a federal penitentiary is beyond me. A word to the
by ivraatiems 4y ago
How anyone could look at this man's behavior over the last few weeks and not think he was on a fast track to a federal penitentiary is beyond me.
A word to the unwise: If you have done something, anything, that you have a credible reason to believe the United States government thinks is illegal, shut up. Do not do any of the following:
* Go on a podcast and talk about it
* Go on a Twitter livestream and talk about it
* Tweet about it
* Answer questions from those you committed the crime against about it
* Speak to journalists about it
Instead, shut up. Shut up shut up shut up shut up. Your defense attorneys and your ankle will thank you.
It does not matter whether it was an honest mistake or not. It does not matter whether you agree, philosophically, that it ought to be illegal. It does not matter whether Congress wants to talk to you about it first. It doesn't matter whether you've lived a life so sheltered and privileged that you cannot conceive of the idea that anyone from the government might be out to get you.
Imagine the US Justice Department as an extremely patient, extremely hungry predator, and yourself as a delicious, plump prey animal with two broken legs hiding behind a rock. Anything you do or say to anybody except your lawyer will be used against you. So shut up.
- jayess 4y agoIt's often arrogance that leads to these things. I have a feeling he thought that the "aw shucks, I didn't know what was happening and I want to make things right" shtick would somehow work. He seems like a pretty dumb guy.
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- Xeoncross 4y agoI don't pity SBF, but this advice is important for innocent citizens. It's unfortunate that anything you say to law enforcement can be used against you - but none of it can be used for you. A police officer can testify against you, but if they try to support you it will be dismissed as "hearsay".
- hprotagonist 4y agohttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE obligatory “don’t talk to the police” link.
- TrickyRick 4y agoI'm impressed it took a whole 33 minutes for this to be linked!
- belter 4y agoYes but they always miss Part 2 :-) "Don't Talk to the Police Part 2" - https://youtu.be/tIt-l2YmH8M https://youtu.be/tIt-l2YmH8M
- danso 4y agoI'm surprised this classic video is 10+ years old but has only 18M views. edit: Saw that the professor, James Duane [0], has his own Wikipedia page, almost entirely on the popularity of the Youtube lecture. Even more surprising, his Talk page seems to be free of debate over Duane's notability. Pretty impressive for a single videoed lecture! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Duane_(professor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Duane_(professor)
- lotsofpulp 4y agoShould be shown in elementary schools as part of the curriculum.
- p0pcult 4y agoBut then youd be disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline![1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/School-to-prison_pipeline https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/School-to-prison_pipeline
- smegger001 4y agoI was shown it in high-school by a particularly good social studies teacher.
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- dilawar 4y agoToday there was an article about his parents in nytimes. I think at at least one of them is professor of law. And both parents seems to be involved with his company. I wonder if he didnt get any advice from them about not talking?! Maybe he knew that he is done legally and there is no downside to talking to public.
- ivraatiems 4y agoThere's a pathology amongst wealthy people where they think that the law doesn't apply to them, period, and are simply shocked when it does. Some other recent examples of this include the lawyer Michael Avenatti going to jail for decades for stealing from his clients, and everything that has ever happened to Donald Trump. (In my experience as a white person it is mostly other white people who think this, but I don't want to generalize.)
- techdmn 4y agoI would argue they have this belief because it is so often true. Exceptions are surprising to many people.
- ivraatiems 4y agoIt's true to an extent. It's rarely true to the extent they imagine.
- foobazgt 4y ago> (In my experience as a white person it is mostly other white people who think this, but I don't want to generalize.) How to casually stereotype without stereotyping?
- MarcoZavala 4y ago
- misiti3780 4y agoWealthy is subjective, I know, and here, on HN, it's certainly more subjective than most places, but are Stanford professors really consider wealthy? By northern california standards?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> How anyone could look at this man's behavior over the last few weeks and not think he was on a fast track to a federal penitentiary is beyond me Seeing how thoroughly he convinced people that he had political influence, and given his general lack of awareness, I’m willing to give merit to his believing he was immune. Similar to how people outside securities think insider trading is more rampant than it is, insider trade in the most obnoxiously obvious way, and then promptly get caught.
- ivraatiems 4y agoOh, I believe he believed it. I just can't imagine an impartial observer from outside his lil universe believing it.
- 2devnull 4y agoI think this is a bit far fetched. He was the scion of famous law professors. He grew up around the law. To think he didn’t understand what the general public does about the law takes a special kind of … assumption that directly contradicts the obvious facts. He very likely knows more about the law than anyone on here. How could he not?
- rootusrootus 4y ago> He very likely knows more about the law than anyone on here. How could he not? There are actual lawyers on HN. I don't think proximity to lawyers makes one as knowledgeable as an actual one.
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- ReptileMan 4y agoLawyer up and shut up is the most basic advice. Ever.
- datavirtue 4y agoI know a dev who is married to a lawyer. He knows enough not to offer an opinion.
- danso 4y agoFWIW it's possible that SBF's post-FTX-bankruptcy actions and words created such a spectacle that federal regulators and investigators were spurred to hit him hard and fast. But all the key evidence cited* comes from what he either tweeted before the collapse, or presented in private to investors. By comparison, Do Kwon has been relatively quiet but that didn't stop him from South Korea putting out an arrest warrant on him in September. But it seems he's still "free" b/c he spent his time hiding his whereabouts. * (at least in the SEC civil lawsuit)
- hn_throwaway_99 4y agoPeople keep saying this, but honestly, does anyone really think it makes one iota of difference? Fact is that there is a huge paper trail of SBF's malfeasance, nevermind the fact that his co-conspirators appear to be turning against him. If anything, his interviews seemed to be his attempt to argue for negligence over malice in his case. Yes, SBF is going to prison for a long time. No, I don't think anyone has made a viable argument that his interviews over the past few weeks are likely to make his sentence worse.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoHard to say how much difference it would make but why would you give your opponent a freebie?
- tyingq 4y agoI think it does make a difference. It's effectively taunting the prosecutors, who will find ways to retaliate. So prison time either way, but likely more than if he had shut up.
- himinlomax 4y agoPoint is, there might be enough dirt to convict him without him talking, but there can't be any less with him talking.
- abakker 4y agoIt does. His tweets were in the SEC's complaints this morning. Tweets AFTER the collapse.
- cjensen 4y agoYes it has made a difference. In white-collar crimes, prosecutors have to prove intent. That means they have to somehow find evidence that the defendant meant to do various things improperly. SBF has literally given interviews where he has stated the required intent for some of the crimes. As an unrelated aside, note that this is also a way of punishing lower classes of people more severely. If you shoplift, prosecutors don't have to prove you meant to do that rather than just accidentally failing to pay. Generally laws for intent are for people that legislators can identify with, and there is no intent requirement for people legislators don't personally identify with.
- drooopy 4y agoNo kidding. If my business had lost billions of dollars belonging to other people, I would only be talking to a small army of lawyers. This guy acted like he had a deathwish.
- jwmoz 4y agoSBF is quite obviously on the spectrum and I think that has a lot to do with his inability to use "No comment".
- Melting_Harps 4y ago> SBF is quite obviously on the spectrum and I think that has a lot to do with his inability to use "No comment". He may be, but going for the Lauri Love defense as your 'hail mary' may have been his only move left; they'll likely claim that this will be clear indication of his mental state in order to to get a lighter sentence or end up in a white-collar prison rather than a stint in Chino.
- engineer_22 4y agoSBF's mother and father are both Standford law professors - so he knows all this. He has another angle. Maybe he was trying to taint the jury pool. He was up to something, but what?
- ivraatiems 4y agoJudge people by their observed behaviors, not what you assume they should know. Lots of people should be smart and should act more intelligently than they do.
- engineer_22 4y agoThere are many accounts of SBF's capacity for subterfuge. I don't believe he was blabbing about what he did because he's stupid.
- hef19898 4y agoYou can be a smart crook and still be stupid enough to do stupid things. Especially if you think you are smart enough to get away with it.
- belter 4y agoParents also not out of the woods. "The FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s mother and father, who teach at Stanford Law School, are under scrutiny for their connections to their son’s crypto business." - https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/12/technology/sbf-parents-ftx-collapse.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/12/technology/sbf-parents-ft...
- TheOtherHobbes 4y agoI'm beginning to suspect this story is deeper than it looks.
- DonHopkins 4y agoI beg to differ. By all means, keep talking! I just don't follow my own advice I give to criminals like SBF.
- birracerveza 4y agoNo, no, let him talk.
- paulpauper 4y agoI don't think it would have made much of a difference either way. The feds did their own investigation and would have arrived at the same conclusions anyway
- Ozzie_osman 4y agoBut, he has a savior complex... And you should too!
- belter 4y agoLast interview. Some pressure applied here... https://unusualwhales.com/sbf-interview https://unusualwhales.com/sbf-interview
- pseingatl 4y agoIn this last interview, he talks about how several customers had negative balances on the platform due to margin trading. According to the SEC's civil suit, the only customer that had a negative balance was Alameda.
- jwmoz 4y agoThey blatantly were doing all sorts of illegal stuff with Alameda-they had god-mode (no liqs) and probably could see and snipe other peoples stops.
- hackerlight 4y agoSource?
- hef19898 4y agoNot a lawyer neither, but in the leaked testemony of his to congress, he states multiple times that he didn't want to file for Chaoter 11 and even ordered people not to. Sounds a little bit incriminating, postponing Chapter 11, insolvency proceedings and all that. Seems he really cannot shut up...
- freyr 4y agoIt’s common knowledge to keep your mouth shut at this point. You don’t need to have highly-regarded lawyers advising you to know this, but SBF had (at least) two: his parents, who were with him in the Bahamas. Even if he was under a delusion that the rules wouldn’t apply to him, we can assume his parents would do everything in their power to reign him in if this was not some sort of strategy. From what I understand of the interviews, he carefully avoided going into details, and instead used the opportunity to present himself as an “aw, shucks” borderline simpleton with a heart of gold who just got in over his head. He was going to be arrested either way, so how do you see this as not a carefully-planned attempt to improve his public image?
- xnyan 4y ago>You don’t need to have highly-regarded lawyers advising you to know this, but SBF had (at least) two: his parents, who were with him in the Bahamas. My experience has been that working with family or very close friends often nullifies or severally weakens professional sensibilities. It would be very understandable and almost expected if his parents are too closely involved emotionally and financially to be objective in this situation, and even if they were, the parent-child relationship also affects how one takes advice. I would never rely on a close family member for important legal services, it seems almost as bad an idea as relying on yourself for legal services.
- zombiwoof 4y agoSBF is a self entitled, privileged prick. He has no concept of infallibility. He is smart and rich so he thinks he will be given a pass
- dang 4y agoOk, but can you please stop posting unsubstantive/flamey comments to HN? You've done that repeatedly, unfortunately. You may not owe ex-billionaire fraud defendants better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
- CodeIsMyFetish 4y agoBoth of his parents are in law too. Like, you'd think he'd know enough to not say anything.
- NaturalPhallacy 4y agoObligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgWHrkDX35o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgWHrkDX35o
- revscat 4y agoDonald Trump did exactly the opposite of your advice at every turn, yet remains free and unindicted. SBF’s main mistake seems to have been not cultivating political clout before committing fraud, not anything related to what he said or did.
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- astrange 4y agoTrump's corporations are indicted and he's banned from running charities in New York. He was also impeached twice, which is the same thing as being indicted (and convicted too).
- jcranmer 4y ago> He was also impeached twice, which is the same thing as being indicted (and convicted too). The Senate trial is the equivalent of conviction; the House impeachment trial is more the equivalent of a grand jury indictment (although a very politicized one). No US President has ever been convicted in the Senate trial, Trump included.
- whateveracct 4y agoTrump was president. Not saying the POTUS is above the law, but it's a much more complicated & explosive situation for law enforcement. And his political clout & influence he used to commit said crimes in broad daylight is way more than some political donations.
- polishdude20 4y agoWhere do people who do these kind of crimes go when they're sent to jail? Like.. is there a jail for financial criminals? A place where you're not sharing a bunk with a serial killer but just a billion dollar fraudster? Or are they usually put into the same place?
- revicon 4y agoMinimum security prison, at least in the United States. https://blog.globaltel.com/white-collar-prison/ https://blog.globaltel.com/white-collar-prison/
- citizenpaul 4y agoI really don't get this either. The guy has got to have a whole legion of lawyers. How are they allowing him to still speak publicly? I'm not even important and I've been consoled by company lawyers to not talk about stuff just "just in case". Yet this guy is is involved in one of the most high profile cases of all time screaming from the mountaintops about it. This whole FTX thing is very suspicious on all kinds of levels internally and externally. So many things about FTX don't make sense as presented.
- xena 4y agoHe ignores the lawyers.
- mindslight 4y agoThe strategy of ignoring advice from attorneys has "worked" for Trump and Musk. Welcome to the age of solipsistic anti-expertise, where cultivating your personal brand matters above all else. It seems like an inevitable condition of deep set post-reality. The interesting question is what develops next.
- datavirtue 4y agoFascism. Large flowery fascism.
- citizenpaul 4y agoI guess you guys are right. The return of "big men" aka dictators. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_man_%28political_science%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_man_%28political_science%2...
- fmajid 4y agoWhite-collar crime prosecutions are notoriously time-consuming to prepare, by those standards this was remarkably swift.
- pacetherace 4y agoTldr: Being stupid and naïve is not a good legal defense
- isx726552 4y agoProbably also shouldn’t go back and delete semi-incriminating tweets[0] and try to avoid bot detection by tweeting one letter at a time[1] to keep the overall count the same (supposedly)[2]. [0] https://protos.com/sam-bankman-fried-caught-deleting-more-tweets-that-aged-like-milk/ https://protos.com/sam-bankman-fried-caught-deleting-more-tw... [1] https://fortune.com/crypto/2022/11/14/sam-bankman-fried-cryptic-twitter-posts/ https://fortune.com/crypto/2022/11/14/sam-bankman-fried-cryp... [2] https://old.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/ywz4j8/sam_bankmanfried_caught_deleting_more_tweets_that/iwocnye/ https://old.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/ywz4j8/sam_...
- Melting_Harps 4y ago> How anyone could look at this man's behavior over the last few weeks and not think he was on a fast track to a federal penitentiary is beyond me. That was obvious, but some of us who have seen some version of this before have been saying he was going to end up in prison when he entered US political donating/purchasing influence since the beginning of 2022; it was clear where this was all going and the hope was that it would take down all the alt scams, but somehow despite not having any BTC it has taken down the entire cryptocurrency market for no discernible reason. Its the epitome of contagion effect in practice; and while hindsight is 20/20 I fear that the greatest take away here will be missed because of the ire that has been fomented in the media: insiders will use anything to achieve their largess, that regulation is a loosely held panacea when said insiders use influence and resources to grift. I think he will get a light sentence, relative to the amount of money that has been lost, like Elizabeth Holmes as he scammed a lot of big players/rich people but it will not be the 2 life sentences that Ross Ulbricht, and that is the real point: we have a multi-tiered judicial system with a very clearly established selective application of the Law.
- Spooky23 4y agoThe guy is a thief who defrauded millions. His hubris is what got him in this situation.
- dokein 4y agoI generally agree with you, but if I had to steelman SBF's actions: 1. Prosecutors don't operate independently of the court of public opinion. They can throw the book at you (e.g. the George Floyd officers) or let you off easy (e.g. other officers who historically did similar things but did not face the same charges). 2. The current perception is that he committed fraud (like Madoff), and if convicted for that would likely go to prison for the rest of his life. 3. He's clearly not innocent of wrongdoing, and there's too many people involved who are cooperating with authorities, so just being quiet doesn't help him as much (in contrast to being found at a crime scene with no witnesses). 4. If he can get a conviction only of criminal negligence then perhaps he can get out of prison faster. 5. Thus perhaps if he can loudly admit to being a bumbling idiot and super negligent, it might sway the public opinion to criminal negligence instead of outright fraud.
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- wslack 4y agoHonestly though, I'm happy he talked more in this situation. We shouldn't decry people who acted horribly unethically digging their own legal grave.