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In under five hours! The jury was home in time for dinner. One question for legal people—why is there such a long gap between conviction and sentencing? In thi
by idlewords 3y ago
In under five hours! The jury was home in time for dinner.
One question for legal people—why is there such a long gap between conviction and sentencing? In this case, the sentence won't be set until March of next year.
- pbj1968 3y agoGive him a chance to wrap things up. He’s not going anywhere in the interim.
- pb7 3y agoWrap up what things? He’s sitting in jail. Nothing to wrap up.
- tempsy 3y agothere’s an appeal process
- datavirtue 3y agoYeah, you work on that while you are in jail.
- chasil 3y agoWhy is this guy even in the country? He could have chartered a boat to Venezuela and taken a few hundred million with him. Of course, all the people he defrauded might follow him.
- duxup 3y agoI suspect most people aren’t really up for life on the run.
- chasil 3y agoVersus decades of prison? Is there not a house next to Edward Snowden? Why stay?
- fallingknife 3y agoRussia has a place for people who leak embarrassing secrets of the US. A thief like SBF has no value to them.
- duxup 3y agoOh they maybe are worth exactly the amount they bring… and someone will want it.
- klyrs 3y agoHe may be safer inside than out in countries without extradition treaties. He burnt a lot of money that wasn't his to burn.
- chasil 3y agoThat makes a lot of sense.
- Scoundreller 3y agoExtradition treaties aren’t the only thing to watch out for. Plenty of countries without them will happily fall over and hand someone wanted over. Extradition treaty mainly just lets some foreign country start a process in local courts to hand someone over. You need to butter up a place with adversarial relations. Or go somewhere with ironclad constitutional protections against extradition. And even then, e.g. France only has those for its own citizens and may still prosecute you locally for your crimes abroad.
- salamanderss 3y agoWhy would they need go to a country subject to treaties. Unrecognized territories like transnistria (weev!),rojava,Somaliland,Ambazonia, western Sahara, Palestine (before invasion), fractions of Myanmar, idlib, rebel held congo fractions, etc. Basically no diplomatic relations and they will likely not eject someone seen locally as supporting their cause. Its a big world out there and a shockingly large portion is free of recognized government control. In such places you pretty much live by your own bootstraps rather than what some far away western country says, at least on the individual level. What really really shocks me though is that SBF didn't just jump on a yacht out right after the failure as he easily could have done. If he had sailed to the right part of Latam or West Africa he'd have a decent chance at not getting caught.
- paxys 3y agoMostly hubris. "I did nothing wrong, I have the best lawyers, I will beat the charges."
- jowea 3y agoHe also did a media tour after things blew up instead of just shutting up, which from what I gathered isn't the best idea for staying out of jail. Real overconfidence in his charisma? The fact that he did this instead of executing a planned escape and going to hangout with Ruja Ignatova is the main reason for me to think he believed his own shit.
- bensecure 3y agoEither he believed his own shit or he was certain that he was smarter than everyone else.
- JohnFen 3y agoI suspect the latter. I suspect even worse -- that he believes not only in his own genius, but that everyone else is actively stupid.
- paxys 3y agoDid media tours while out on bail. Leaked his ex-gf's private diaries in an attempt to intimidate her. Decided to testify at his own trial. I'm almost certain that he thought he would give a grand speech and all the jurors would instantly take his side, just like he had experienced with VCs, journalists, employees and other sycophants for the past decade.
- chasil 3y agoHubris, thy name is psyche.
- ww520 3y agoHe ran out of cash?
- prepend 3y agoRemember he tried that when he was in the Bahamas. But he ran out of money and the Bahamians turned him over.
- harambae 3y agoYeah I remember one of Sam's lawyers insisted he stay in the Bahamas and fight extradition if he was to have any chance of staying out of jail and the other lawyer said he should do the opposite and accept extradition. Given how harsh the US is on financial crimes, I always thought the former opinion was smarter. Nick Leeson only got sentenced to 6 1/2 years in Singapore (and served 4). Or, alternatively, most stats show higher levels of corruption he could've finessed in his favor in the Bahamas. As soon as he arrived on US soil it was over for him IMO.
- selimthegrim 3y agoWhy even follow him, I’m sure hitmen are pretty cheap in Venezuela. I guess security guards are too.
- Moto7451 3y agoAnother softball interview at the New York Times I’m sure.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bradleyjg 3y agoThere’s quite a bit that goes into sentencing hearings especially if there are a lot of victims and/or the defendant has a lot of money. All that takes time to line up.
- tempsy 3y agoThere’s a second trial around the same time for all the illegal political donations he made.
- RachelF 3y ago[flagged]
- ipaddr 3y agoIf by kill himself you mean killed by others and the guards just happen to take a break then probably not
- reactordev 3y agoAllegedly. There’s no evidence to back this claim other than the guards were on break when he died. If I were to plan my demise in jail, I’d wait for the guards to go on break as well. Less chance of them finding you before you’re gone.
- ipaddr 3y agoYou wouldn't know as they were watching from closed circuit tv from another room.
- shadowgovt 3y agoWasn't that close circuit TV system busted?
- tough 3y agoFunny how said CCTV was also down at the same time
- TheOtherHobbes 3y agoHis client list is quite well known. So far as I know, and in spite of the evidence, no one on it has ever been questioned - apart from Prince Andrew, and that was the result of a civil case. With Epstein dead there's no reason why anyone would be. Any former "party friends" can always be paid off, or discouraged in less subtle ways. The more interesting question is - who replaced Epstein?
- hgfdhgdfhf654g 3y ago[flagged]
- harryquach 3y agoImagine sitting in a prison cell, for 5 months, having no idea how long you will be there. That sounds almost worse than knowing your sentence. At the end of the day he deserves everything he's getting
- BurningFrog 3y agoAre we sure that he'll be locked up waiting for sentencing?
- dragontamer 3y agoHe had a cushy house-arrest deal at first (after paying for bail) and then started to abuse his computer-access to tamper with witnesses. So yeah. I'm pretty sure he's getting the slammer while waiting for sentencing.
- beezle 3y agoHe will almost certainly appeal and as part of that will try to post bond to stay out until the appeal is heard.
- FireBeyond 3y agoI wonder how posting bond works post-conviction (pre-appeal). As in sourcing of funds, as now you're in a limbo of reasonable doubt about how you made your money (and in this case, his parents also shared in the largesse).
- JohnFen 3y agoThey'll also figure in how likely they think he is to skip out and flee the country or something. He very likely has the money to do it stashed away somewhere, so the question is would he be willing to? I don't know how that would play out, but he isn't exactly looking good, character-wise.
- Waterluvian 3y agoFederal sentencing guidelines are a complex formula that require visiting at least one oracle atop a mountain.
- pbhjpbhj 3y agoWhy can't the eagles just fly them there though?
- duxup 3y agoI was on a jury recently. Deliberations began after closing statements Friday morning. First thing we all agreed we would not be coming back on Monday…
- garciasn 3y agoAs long as it was clear a decision could be made in time, fine. But, frankly, if I were on trial by a jury of my peers, I’d appreciate it if people took their time.
- duxup 3y agoIn our case it was a civil trial and effectively we were just picking $ amount to pay out. It also turned out that we were all mostly on the same page. Criminal stuff i certainly would have not agreed.
- ipaddr 3y agoI was on a jury. We pushed it a little longer to get it to that last free lunch and make it long enough not to go back in the jury pool.
- crossroadsguy 3y agoIs the lunch nice? Do you get paid as well? What kind of hotels are you all kept in? Is it like in those Hollywood films? How common are things like jury tempering? Do you all have sufficient protection?
- p1necone 3y ago(not in the USA, I assume it varies wildly by country). Here you get takeout from one of a few regular locations near the courtroom.
- ipaddr 3y agoYou were in the jury pool for a week. You could serve on multiple cases if they were short enough. If you were picked for a case and it went on over a week you got paid. Some trials require a hotel stay but the chances of getting on one is rare. The lunches were sandwiches from the vending machine. Two choice ham and without meat. They were good I can taste the salt on the ham as I write this. The conversations within the jury are like tv. Immediately you have a few who think anyone on trial is guilty. You have a smaller group who want to find reasons they may not. At some point someone will accuse that group of being part of the criminal conspiracy. Friends and enemies are formed. Promises and deals were made but all disappears after the verdict (someone offered me a job and ghosted later). Protections? I had a job offer to start that week that I lost because I couldn't start. No police protections. The actual trial is very boring. Police reading notes. Long winded questions without any tv drama. Worthwhile as an experience.
- tptacek 3y agoBecause there's essentially a whole second sentencing trial. After the verdict, the Parole Office prepares a Presentence Report (I'm not sure if these are public? I'm always looking for them and never finding them on PACER†), the "PSR", which is like the opening bid for the recommended offense levels and grouping. The prosecution and defense then respond to the PSR with exculpatory, mitigating, or aggravating claims, victim impact testimony, your scout leader when you made Eagle Scout, all that stuff. Only then does the judge work out what the actual sentence is. The guidelines calculations, contrary to public belief, are pretty easy! You will have a pretty good success rate just carefully reading the charged statutes in the indictment and then following the instructions in the guidelines. But the PSR, prosecution, and defense filings all take a bunch of time, and involve "reporting" or "research" or whatever you'd want to call it. That process ostensibly can't even start until everyone knows what the precise convictions were. For what it's worth, I think there's a very good chance he just gets the statutory maximum penalties here, because the dollar loss and victim count numbers max out the 2B1.1 guidelines (which, for instance, cap out at $10MM in dollar losses). Attributing specific dollar losses and victim counts is ostensibly one of the things that makes sentencing take so long, but as long as it takes I think the outcome is a foregone conclusion. † Later: they're definitely not public; there's a whole victims rights thing about getting victims partial access to PSRs so they can be heard in the sentencing process. I guess I can stop looking for them.
- IG_Semmelweiss 3y agoThank you! I learned from this. Follow up - is there any kind of correlation in the gap length, between sentencing and PSR ? I could see a situation where the gap is longer than a sentence, and that would be pretty sad for the prosecuted...
- tptacek 3y agoThat's not so much going to be an issue in this case. But a lot of the time, especially in federal white collar cases, the defendant isn't in custody during sentencing anyways.
- 3y ago
- A4ET8a8uTh0 3y agoHaving been called upon to serve on a jury before, I will admit that I tend to err on the side of the accused, but here the guy did everything, often in his own words, to tank any reasonable defense and doubt one could have. I followed the case and shook with disbelief at some of the things that were said. I was amazed at the initially lenient treatment he got. My jaw landed on the floor when I saw python code that did not even try to hide randomized balance. And those are just the highlights off the top of my head. It is not often that I get to say this lately, but the jury restored some of my tired faith in the system in US.
- JohnFen 3y ago> I will admit that I tend to err on the side of the accused I believe that's what you're supposed to do, as implied by "beyond a reasonable doubt" -- so good job!
- ckwalsh 3y agoThe 5 hours doesn’t surprise me. I was on the jury of a federal fraud trial with 2 defendants with 15 charges, ~30 million in losses. We were thorough and went through each count separately, including reviewing some of the evidence, and were done in maybe 8 hours spread across 2 days. We ended up with a mixed verdict: one count not guilty for both, another not guilty for one. I fully believe they were aware and committed fraud for the not guilty counts, but the prosecutor wasn’t able to cross the “reasonable doubt” threshold in our minds for those specific instances. Only thing we weren’t super careful about was the first requirement for Mail/Wire fraud, which is “Mail and wires” were used. It was amusing that the prosecutors brought in a bank IT guy to explain that “the internet uses wires”, but not really something we questioned.
- SilasX 3y ago“So, contrary to popular belief, the internet is not some big truck that you can just dump something on a la Ted Stevens; it’s more of a … series of tubes?” ‘That is correct.’
- JohnFen 3y ago> to explain that “the internet uses wires” I wonder if they did that to avoid having to explain to the jury that wire fraud does not actually require the use of wires...
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y agoWhat does it require, if not wires? And are modern fiber optic cables wires in any sense of the word? Does the relevant statute in USC18 actually define "wire" for the purpose of the crime? Part of me thinks that wireless communications must be included, but one might make the case that even then, information/communication is transmitted over wire at some point.
- JohnFen 3y agoWire, radio, and television. The definition is: "having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice" https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1343 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1343 UPDATE: Various court decisions have expanded the interpretation so that "wire fraud" also involves the use of the internet, phone calls, emails, social media messages, faxes, telegrams, fiber optic, cable or SMS messaging and data systems. I am not a lawyer, though. I could be mistaken on this.
- datadrivenangel 3y agoWe were done in 30 minutes for a DUI case in local county court the last time I served. 25 of those minutes were spent trying to find any reasonable doubt after we all agreed on guilt.