7 ms·

To play devil's advocate, extremely high profile white collar criminals like SBF are objectively less likely to reoffend while on bail in a way that would harm

• orhmeh09 4y ago
  What’s your objective definition of someone’s likelihood of reoffending? Further, he still has phone and Internet privileges — does this impulsive man even seem like he can help himself?
  • creato 4y ago
    Even if he could find victims gullible enough to trust him, he’s under too much scrutiny from other less gullible people. Reoffending is impossible.
    • collectedparts 4y ago
      Agreed on the basic point that he won't win any more confidence games. I think the main thing is that we haven't seen what he might do now that he knows for sure that he's (by default) headed for a lifetime in jail. It seems that before the arrest, he was pretty delusional / "high on his own supply" and believed he was going to somehow talk his way out of trouble, as he'd ostensibly been doing for so long. So the thought experiment now is: do we believe that there's anything nefarious that he could do now, that he'd stopped himself from doing back when he was still trying to maintain an illusion? For example, he could have various wallet private keys (secretly?) memorized [1], and could take steps to move the funds to new wallets. TBH the idea that his (fiat) transactions are limited to $1k is a little laughable for someone who until recently, and perhaps still, has access to billions in crypto. [1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Brainwallet https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Brainwallet
      • lolc 4y ago
        Don't the bail conditions forbid all financial transactions, even if they are in some shitcoin? Touching his wallets would violate that. So he could move funds around, but risk bankrupting his parents in doing so. The ultra-high bail means it would be hard for him to compensate them.
        • snapcaster 4y ago
          I wouldn't be surprised if he had access to wallets nobody else knows about with some of the customer money stashed away
          • lolc 4y ago
            It's a possibility. But the way I understand it, he thought he was somehow above board with what he was doing. At least recoverable, eventually above board. Having dark wallets would not have been consistent with that. Of course, that's what he wants me to think. I'm ready to learn that my take is too naive. But so far, evidence of a bigger plot is missing for me.
          • collectedparts 4y ago
            In case this concern seemed theoretical: https://twitter.com/wizardofsoho/status/1606610665795379201 https://twitter.com/wizardofsoho/status/1606610665795379201
    • doctomaton 4y ago
      What about Jordan Belfort? He had an entire movie named after him and he’s still pulling scams https://youtu.be/RZOHYm2TpVM https://youtu.be/RZOHYm2TpVM
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    • navane 4y ago
      It wouldnt surprise me if somehow a substantial part of the population is convinced he did nothing wrong, is being prosecuted by the reptiles/deepstate/etc, and would gladly hand him over more money. The past years have shown that we cant rely on common sense.
  • sieabahlpark 4y ago
    [dead]
  • at-w 4y ago
    I base that estimation on his offense being entirely reliant on a corporation (whose assets are now frozen), his own personal reputation (which is now destroyed), and his crime not alleged to involve violence in any form. Morally, I think people like Madoff are worse than many gang members or low-level violent criminals. That doesn't change the fact that they are far less of an immediate threat to the people around them, particularly now that they have been exposed. A confidence scam fraudster who has been exposed is a bit like a paraplegic murderer. They may be morally reprehensible, but they're effectively unlikely to reoffend in a few months awaiting trial. If you honestly would rather live next to the average person arrested for assault or robbery than Bankman-Fried while both await trial, be my guest, but you can probably understand why others might feel differently. Like many things, cash bail is effectively "discriminatory" in that it tends to hurt poor criminals more than white collar ones. That still doesn't mean discrimination is the primary reason it exists, or that that somehow negates any of its benefits.
    • quacked 4y ago
      > Morally, I think people like Madoff are worse than many gang members or low-level violent criminals Out of curiosity, why do you think this? Grand theft of wealth based on fraud doesn't strike me as morally worse than gangbanging, armed robbery, human trafficking, etc. (To detail my own calibration, I would say someone like Henry Kissinger is morally worse than low-level criminals. Typically I think it goes theft < violence < warmongering, etc.)
      • at-w 4y ago
        Off the top of my head I'd look at who their crime affected and to what degree, why the perpetrator did it, whether it was premeditated or done in the spur of the moment, what other options the perpetrator had, etc. Someone who is intellectually mediocre, grows up around violent scumbags, and ends up robbing others instead of working a job is reprehensible, but I would say less so than a Bernie Madoff who was already wealthy, highly capable, and decided to defraud people of their life savings over decades. Madoff is not someone like Martin Shkreli bullshitting wealthy investors out of some portion of their wealth, he's someone who ruined people's lives. People often discount "economic" crimes that they can't directly see the harms of, like insurance fraud, welfare fraud, tax cheating, corruption etc. That's easy to do in places like the US, but becomes more obviously problematic in places like Southern Italy or Argentina whose economies have gradually been destroyed by a widespread acceptance of corruption, cheating and "economic" crimes.
• can16358p 4y ago
  Didn't he say "sorry" many times, and always did something shitty again afterwards?
  • smsm42 4y ago
    There are different shitty things. White collar shitty things usually hurt different people in different way than street crime shitty things.
• kuhewa 4y ago
  They also are objectively more likely to have the means to flee out of jurisdiction. If a criminal is deemed extremely likely to commit violent crime on bail, they simply shouldn't get bail, the amount they pay or are able to should be moot
  • smsm42 4y ago
    What about a non-violent crime? Let's say guy is breaking into cars. Police catches him (they don't anymore, but let's assume they did). He probability that he's going to do the same is about 100% as soon as he is out. And tbh, there's no reason for him not to - if they are going to ever get him to court, he's going to jail anyway, he can't afford a decent lawyer, but in the meantime he'd need to live somehow. So there's little reason for him not to re-offend immediately.
    • mantas 4y ago
      Breaking into cars is closer to violent-y crime than financial crimes. Street crime may be a better phrase.
  • at-w 4y ago
    >They also are objectively more likely to have the means to flee out of jurisdiction. That is explicitly factored into the decision of whether to grant bail and determining flight risk. It's probably not going out on a limb to say SBF's $250 MILLION dollar bail had something to do with his wealth and the flight risk it presented, and isn't standard procedure. >If a criminal is deemed extremely likely to commit violent crime on bail, they simply shouldn't get bail, the amount they pay or are able to should be moot This is also how it works right now. Sometimes established systems have gotten some things right in their thousands of years of development, even when they're not perfect. Presumably nobody's arguing the pudgy crypto fraudster who has never been so much as accused of a violent crime is "extremely likely to commit violent crime on bail."
• EB66 4y ago
  > are objectively less likely to reoffend while on bail in a way that would harm regular citizens I'm not so sure that's true... do you have data to support that? I can think of some counter examples pretty easily off the top of my head -- Billy McFarland, Michael Avenatti, etc.
  • remarkEon 4y ago
    >Do you have data to support this? Comments like this are really bizarre. It's like asking for "data" that says looking both ways before crossing the street is a good idea and reduces the frequency of pedestrian fatalities. Your two examples further OP's point. Those two people are asshole fraudsters, but they don't present a physical danger to people around them.
    • EB66 4y ago
      > Comments like this are really bizarre. It's like asking for "data" that says looking both ways before crossing the street is a good idea and reduces the frequency of pedestrian fatalities. Since when is it "bizarre" to ask someone if they've based their assertion off of hard data? I replied to at-w's fairly remarkable claim that white collar criminals are less likely to harm people while out on bail than non-white collar criminals. That assertion is not a forgone conclusion like the wisdom of "look both ways before you cross the street". Clearly it's reasonable to ask the poster if they're basing their assertion off of some hard data. > Those two people are asshole fraudsters, but they don't present a physical danger to people around them. We're talking about the propensity to harm others while out on bail. Harm is not limited to physical harm. The two examples I gave were of white collar criminals who continued to defraud/extort others while they were out on bail.
    • r_hoods_ghost 4y ago
      Comments like this are bizarre. If the claim is that a) is objectively true then you'd better have data to back up that claim otherwise your claim is not objective.
      • MagicMoonlight 4y ago
• realusername 4y ago
  The chance of SBF running a crypto scam to raise money for his defense sounds pretty high, at least from an outsider perspective
• chirau 4y ago
  You conveniently cite heinous crimes such as robbery and assault. One third of incarcerated folks in the US are there for possession charges. Not intent to distribute, just possession. No bail hence incarceration. How is a person carrying weed a bigger threat to society than a scammer like SBF?
  • jl6 4y ago
    I think at-w’s point still stands - a neutered fraudster is amongst the least likely to reoffend or pose danger. Now, flight risk might be another matter.
    • at-w 4y ago
      With flight risk being accounted for in his bail being set at $250 million, surrendering his passport, and agreeing to remain confined in his parents' home. Those are incredibly strict bail terms for any crime, and clearly factor in his immense wealth.
      • emn13 4y ago
        I'm not sure the 250$ million is relevant here - he did not have to post anything like that, so if he's willing to throw his parents under the bus and rates his chances of escape highly he can leave without ever paying that bail. Additionally, an interesting question with regards to money is if he's stashed some of those customer funds somewhere. If he has, then even 250 million wouldn't necessarily be an insurmountable barrier since billions are missing. Of course regardless of whether he has access to such stolen funds he'd never need to post the bail as it's unsecured; he'd either abscond and not pay 250 million, or stay and not need to pay in the first place.
        • dragonwriter 4y ago
          > so if he's willing to throw his parents under the bus and rates his chances of escape highly he can leave without ever paying that bail. Suppose he owns the $400+ million in Robinhood equity that he, FTX, and others are currently in a legal battle over. That asset would be within the reach of the automatic default judgement in favor of government that comes with bail forfeiture, even if SBF had fled to a country without extradition.
• mayankkaizen 4y ago
  Likes of SBF or Holmes should be punished more harshly. They had access to all the resources in the world, the resources poor people dont even know exist. They were educated from the institutes not everyone can afford. They never had to worry about next meal. They have all the high profile contacts. And what did they choose to do? To fraud people. Your comment simply reeks of elitism. Imagine a poor all clean chap comes to you for a job. You wouldn't offer him any, given the logic in your comment. What will he do next? Commit another crime. Most common people dont commit crime out of choice. They are forced to commit crimes again and again. In Most cases, it is the society which forces them to do shit. The same is not true for SBF or Holmes. They chose to fraud people out of choice.
  • noyoudumbdolt 4y ago
    Indeed, serious fraudsters can be worse than some violent offenders. But your whole comment is pointless and ignorant because bail is not supposed to be punishment. Bail is to secure the person’s reappearance at court and, especially when it is denied, to protect the public from a dangerous person. Punishment comes after you’re found guilty.
    • dtgriscom 4y ago
      For the poor, bail is punishing and harmful. The difference between that and formal "punishment" after trial is academic.
      • noyoudumbdolt 4y ago
        So is having to contest a criminal trial at all. But the alternative is to have people flee before their trial, or continue to terrorize the public. The right to a speedy trial is the backstop to all this.