3 ms·

> So it should be really hard to argue that this is a "light" sentence. The well-considered federal sentencing guidelines put the sentence for this crime at ov

by runako 3y ago

> So it should be really hard to argue that this is a "light" sentence. The well-considered federal sentencing guidelines put the sentence for this crime at over 100 years. That is, for an anonymous defendant at remove, our legal system believes that 100+ years is a fair sentence for this set of offenses. So another way of looking at this is because of who the specific defendant is here, the court shaved 80 years off the "fair" sentence. I would consider that a light sentence.

acdha 3y ago
That’s starting from misunderstanding how federal sentencing works - even the prosecutors only asked for half that. Ken White has a good explainer of how federal sentencing actually works and why the numbers people toss around are too high: https://popehat.substack.com/p/beware-the-flood-of-trump-sentencing https://popehat.substack.com/p/beware-the-flood-of-trump-sen...
- runako 3y ago
  From the article you linked: "White collar criminals only get sentenced close to the statutory maximum when (1) they are only convicted of one or two counts with very low statutory maximum (say, one count of a crime with a five-year statutory maximum, as part of a plea bargain), or (2) cases involving truly extraordinary amounts of money." Unlike the Trump case the article discusses, this case involves a truly extraordinary amount of money. Prosecutors did indeed ask for half that, but the court gave only half of the (already lenient) request due to facts about the person who was convicted. Note that the Madoff case involved a similar amount of money and he indeed did get the big sentence. I suspect that was because he was likely to die in jail given any reasonable sentence, so better to make a show of it. In this case, SBF got a more lenient treatment for a similar offense because he is younger (note that the judge did not believe he has any remorse and still gave a lighter sentence).

by runako 3y ago

acdha 3y ago

That’s starting from misunderstanding how federal sentencing works - even the prosecutors only asked for half that. Ken White has a good explainer of how federal sentencing actually works and why the numbers people toss around are too high: https://popehat.substack.com/p/beware-the-flood-of-trump-sentencing https://popehat.substack.com/p/beware-the-flood-of-trump-sen...

runako 3y ago
From the article you linked: "White collar criminals only get sentenced close to the statutory maximum when (1) they are only convicted of one or two counts with very low statutory maximum (say, one count of a crime with a five-year statutory maximum, as part of a plea bargain), or (2) cases involving truly extraordinary amounts of money." Unlike the Trump case the article discusses, this case involves a truly extraordinary amount of money. Prosecutors did indeed ask for half that, but the court gave only half of the (already lenient) request due to facts about the person who was convicted. Note that the Madoff case involved a similar amount of money and he indeed did get the big sentence. I suspect that was because he was likely to die in jail given any reasonable sentence, so better to make a show of it. In this case, SBF got a more lenient treatment for a similar offense because he is younger (note that the judge did not believe he has any remorse and still gave a lighter sentence).