An uncle once commented about a cousin of ours that he demonstrated how it's possible to screw things up so badly that you can't possibly recover. I think that's true for Sam. I hope it's not true for the people in his orbit; I hope they can get out from under this and try to find meaning, ideally from repairing the harm they've done.
As Rick Heicklen writes, "We are not ever going to be Sam. But we could be Caroline, or Nishad, or Natalie. Or even Michael Lewis. We could easily make the same mistakes they do." [0]
It's funny. I lost tens of thousands of dollars thanks to this individual, yet his sentence brings me no joy or arouses any emotion at all. I'm utterly indifferent to his fate for some reason and I don't know why. Yet if he had been a mugger who stole a much smaller amount of money from me on the street, I think I would've been far more vengeful.
Should I feel vindictive? Or is it healthy to forget about it and move on? I'm not sure.
In 2022, the average murderer in the Federal Southern District of New York (N = 58) was sentenced to a median of 231 months, which comes out to 19 years and change.
No crime of any type had an mean or median sentence higher than 25 years; most were far less than half.
So it should be really hard to argue that this is a "light" sentence. If anything, it's excessive if you consider the nature of the crime relative to the nature of murder or kidnapping.
"AUSA Nicolas Roos: Samuel Bankman-Fried stole $8 billion dollars. It was theft, from customers spread all over the world. It was a loss that impacted people significantly and caused damage. I want to address a few of the new victim letters"
"AUSA Roos: They lost their life savings. A man who lives in Portugal - the day before bankruptcy his daughter was born. He was marred by the ominous specter of financial instability and his daughter's future. Then there's the 23 year old from Morocco"
"AUSA Roos: He is the eldest son. He kept money on FTX not to loan it out to the defendant but for family's security. One more - a couple in the later stages of their life, late 60s, they invested with life savings. They were depressed, they had to go back to work"
FTX was one of the biggest frauds in history.. and you're showing us averages. Madoff received a 150 year sentence, and that was with leniency for pleading guilty.
> If anything, it's excessive if you consider the nature of the crime relative to the nature of murder or kidnapping.
I suspect the resulting number of shortened lives amongst all the people who lost $8 billion worth of their money due to the fraud is more than the number caused by a single murder.
> If anything, it's excessive if you consider the nature of the crime relative to the nature of murder or kidnapping.
The value of a single human life is not infinite. In engineering and public policy, a value like $10 million / life is typically used to make trade-offs. SBF stole funds far in excess of that.
Secondly, when funds of this scale are stolen, inevitably people wind up dying early from things like stress, and suicides.
> 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.
Statistical value of a human life in the US is around $7.5 million. Stealing $10 billion is therefore statistically equivalent to killing 1300 people, or pretty close to half of 9/11. That seems like a pretty light sentence to me.
Excessive? I don't want to put monetary value on people's lives, but I don't think it's obvious that someone murdering one person has done more wrong than another who stole billions of dollars and ruined the lives of hundreds or thousands of people. Especially if any of those people committed suicide because of what happened, but even if not.
Three people killed themselves after losing everything. The feds used FTX as an excuse to ramp up operation chokepoint 2.0, which left countless startups bankless. It was a light sentence.
Dollars-to-donuts that the vast majority of federal murders here were drug related. Not that I think the that makes it in any way better, but in many ways gang violence is more of a war than an individual, targeted killing. These types of circumstances matter when it comes to sentencing, and I'm not surprised at all that SBF's sentencing is longer than you "average" federal murder sentencing.
It would be more accurate to compare this to a mass crime. 25 feels light for perpetrating one of the biggest and notorious frauds in modern history. Did the judge go to the upper range of the punishment spectrum? There are judges out there who would have made an example out of this case.
Have you considered how many people committed suicide because of SBF? Or how many people won't be able to pay for medical care, will suffer, and eventually die?
It's impossible to knoe the number, but it's arguably non-zero.
He should have gotten the 40 years prosecution was asking.
Money is not just paper with pictures on it. Money represents human labor. So him stealing billions effectively destroyed thousands of lifetimes of labor. If anything, his sentence is extremely light.
I don't think it's a light sentence, but maybe it's not the right sentence. For the punishment to fit the crime, he shouldn't ever allowed to be rich again. I think that's more of a deterrent for this sort of thing.
I say this tongue in cheek, but mostly because I don't know what options judges have at their disposal in these situations.
I'm not saying that people should kill others or themselves because of the amounts of money involved here, and I'm not entirely sure what the minimum threshold is for financial crimes where that becomes an (grim and unfortunate) side effect, but when we're discussing the largest fraud in history it's definitely on that scale. Even though he stole money, the human cost of that is beyond just fractured careers and relationships, undoubtedly because of how humans behave people almost certainly lost their entire lives due to the continuing effects caused only by this crime. That cost in human life should be taken into account here, even if it shouldn't have had that kind of cost.
It's a light sentence by the sentencing guidelines; the judge has departed downwards from what the guidelines would seem to have recommended (we didn't get to see the PSR so we don't know which of the obvious details have been contested).
I haven't gone through that source in detail, but I would assume that includes people who pled guilty, felony murder (ie they didn't directly kill someone, were just involved in a different felony that resulted in someone's death), crimes of passion and other cases where lighter sentences are justified.
Honestly, comparing billion dollar fraud to murder is a bit tricky for me. In the one hand we could try to give a dollar value to a life, maybe a million dollars. But I don’t know if stealing a million dollars is equivalent to murder, since money is fungible and people are not. The government can make the victim of theft whole. For murder, that is not possible.
On the other hand maybe a more reasonable approach would be to treat criminals as people who need to be quarantined for as long as they’re dangerous. If we could identify a treatable disease (a tumor for example) and know with 100% certainty that treating that disease could prevent further crimes, I personally wouldn’t have an issue with it. We have an impulse to punish evil, and severely punish very evil things, but it’s more of a primitive drive than anything productive. (Of course the exception is the extent to which punishment can deter crime.)
>So it should be really hard to argue that this is a "light" sentence. If anything, it's excessive if you consider the nature of the crime relative to the nature of murder or kidnapping.
How many people's lives were ruined or ended by his malfeasance? He got off lightly.
I think that's about fair and reasonable. It's been said in Europe he would not have gotten more than years and it's probably true. 25 years is a really long time and even if he does only 20, still super long.
Here's a live tweeting of the sentencing hearing; some of Judge Kaplan's remarks are really interesting.
If I broke into a person's house and stole $1000, even if I didn't directly hurt that person, I could expect to get several years in prison, basically regardless of the state. Lets say three years to be conservative on this?
Sam Bankman Fried stole billions of dollars [1], probably often around $1000 at a time from tens of thousands of people. If going with my logic, he should be getting a lot longer than 25 years, upwards of hundreds or thousands of years. Obviously, it's not a linear relationship, the crime was non-violent, first-time-offender, etc. I'm just saying that 25 years seems pretty fair to me considering the magnitude of the crime.
I am one of the victims (well, of Gemini Earn anyway), and I think if I were given the choice, I'd probably sentence him to 20-25 years.
[1] Or at least so grossly mismanaged that there's no real purpose in drawing a distinction.
Tbh, a bunch of American (high profile) lawyers had estimated that he'd only get a couple of years, max, as he had no prior convictions - and the nature of the case.
In comparison to his cellmate, ex president of Honduras, who got 40 mandatory years this is not a super long sentence.
On 8 March 2024, Hernández was convicted of three counts of drug trafficking and weapons conspiracy and faces mandatory minimum sentence of 40 years in prison.
Sam is a crook, no doubt, but even now I find him a funny figure. His trial defence was awful. He sincerely believes he was trying to do the right thing, so spent his time on the stand defending his actions at length, instead of keeping his mouth shut except to express contrition. This probably cost him years of freedom.
It's strange to say but there's an... authenticity to this that I find endearing.
I met a nice Israeli filmography couple (somewhat known in Israel, I think) in Tulum last summer. After conducting important business, they were telling me about how they were vacating on the back of a nice windfall -- they got paid upfront for an editting/production job which was unprecedented and generous. Implications of lots of money and some "image rehabilitation". They're acting a bit coy about it, and I'm feeling perfectly fine to be nosy.
So they ask if I've ever heard of "S.B.F.". After my mouth fell open and I gasped for air a few times, and demanded some proof, I got to see a not-public interview of SBF. Nothing particularly juicy, but still. I'm a nerd and I love gossip.
Apropos of nothing, other than the world is small, and weird; I guess.
I remember even before he got arrested it seemed bizarre how much PR there was about him. Allegedly it was organic but I'm sure he was paying for a lot of it in anticipation of when he got caught.
Lots of puff pieces came out after his arrest as well which also seemed bizarrely forced.
From the article, SBF will likely be out in 2036, at the age of 45. There’s a good chance he’ll get himself into shenanigans again, if not already from inside prison.
prison is such an interesting concept. violent people need to be physically separated for the safety of the population. but for a crime like this maybe it would be better to just give him 5-10 years in prison but never let him deal in finance again. i would rather have him on a road crew tying re-bar than using up tax payer money in prison...
I sincerely hope more crypto crooks end up in prison as well! I can't stand the noise around crypto. It's a Rube Goldberg machine presented as the next big thing when it's nothing but a magnet for greedy speculators and nothing more.
For those wondering, prosecutors asked for 50 years in prison, defense asked for 5 years. So this sentence is right down the middle. 50 years in prison would have been way too long IMO.
Many of the comments here about the utility of punishment is very utilitarian, which is ironically fitting since we're talking of SBF.
What I never see acknowledged (or believed) by more lenient people is the fact that adequate punishment (sometimes harsh is adequate) serves to send a message not only to other offenders, but maybe most importantly to non-offenders, that the justice system is worth something.
"Crime doesn't pay" is to me a greater message to people who are not willing to commit crimes in the first place.
I love harsh American justice. In some countries you can stalk, kidnap, rape, kill, and then dismember a child and get less of a sentence than SBF. I have seen terrorists conduct attacks where mass casualties and death occur, they get sentenced to five years, get "rehabilitated" and then go free and do it all again. I have heard people drone on about American prison sentences being overboard but after seeing hundreds of murder/torture/terrorist cases prosecuted all over the world, the US is the only country that gets it right. If you are a danger to society you should be removed from society according to the risk you present. There is no excuse for reoffense.
Lol. "My useful life is over," he says. As if there was anything useful about setting up a fraudulent exchange to steal billions of dollars so he could go play animal house with Caroline in his penthouse.
He will have to serve 21 years before early release. There is no parole in federal prison. I heard 5 years are concurrent making it 20 actual years. If that’s the case he can get out in 17 years.
SBF was a bright kid that was further enabled by his parents and the environment he grew up in. Imagine taking peoples life savings and being on speed while arbitraging exchanges? Thats some real hubris to not reflect that you might make a mistake at some point. The intellectual arrogance further indicts his parents who likely cheered him on.
[+] [-] setgree|1 year ago|reply
As Rick Heicklen writes, "We are not ever going to be Sam. But we could be Caroline, or Nishad, or Natalie. Or even Michael Lewis. We could easily make the same mistakes they do." [0]
[0] https://asteriskmag.com/issues/05/michael-lewis-s-blind-side, posted previously here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39118124
[+] [-] publius_0xf3|1 year ago|reply
Should I feel vindictive? Or is it healthy to forget about it and move on? I'm not sure.
[+] [-] A_D_E_P_T|1 year ago|reply
https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-pu...
In 2022, the average murderer in the Federal Southern District of New York (N = 58) was sentenced to a median of 231 months, which comes out to 19 years and change.
No crime of any type had an mean or median sentence higher than 25 years; most were far less than half.
So it should be really hard to argue that this is a "light" sentence. If anything, it's excessive if you consider the nature of the crime relative to the nature of murder or kidnapping.
[+] [-] Vicinity9635|1 year ago|reply
"AUSA Roos: They lost their life savings. A man who lives in Portugal - the day before bankruptcy his daughter was born. He was marred by the ominous specter of financial instability and his daughter's future. Then there's the 23 year old from Morocco"
"AUSA Roos: He is the eldest son. He kept money on FTX not to loan it out to the defendant but for family's security. One more - a couple in the later stages of their life, late 60s, they invested with life savings. They were depressed, they had to go back to work"
https://twitter.com/innercitypress/status/177336575999912795...
[+] [-] rgbrenner|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] marcinzm|1 year ago|reply
I suspect the resulting number of shortened lives amongst all the people who lost $8 billion worth of their money due to the fraud is more than the number caused by a single murder.
[+] [-] petertodd|1 year ago|reply
The value of a single human life is not infinite. In engineering and public policy, a value like $10 million / life is typically used to make trade-offs. SBF stole funds far in excess of that.
Secondly, when funds of this scale are stolen, inevitably people wind up dying early from things like stress, and suicides.
[+] [-] logro|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] runako|1 year ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] dns_snek|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] whatscooking|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] 4ndrewl|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] kelnos|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] willmadden|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] hn_throwaway_99|1 year ago|reply
However, the other thing I'd point out is that murder is rarely a federal crime - it's usually a state crime. I was curious as to when it becomes a federal crime and found this: https://www.greenspunlaw.com/library/when-murder-is-a-federa...
Dollars-to-donuts that the vast majority of federal murders here were drug related. Not that I think the that makes it in any way better, but in many ways gang violence is more of a war than an individual, targeted killing. These types of circumstances matter when it comes to sentencing, and I'm not surprised at all that SBF's sentencing is longer than you "average" federal murder sentencing.
[+] [-] ken47|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] rmbyrro|1 year ago|reply
It's impossible to knoe the number, but it's arguably non-zero.
He should have gotten the 40 years prosecution was asking.
[+] [-] bufferoverflow|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] dfxm12|1 year ago|reply
I say this tongue in cheek, but mostly because I don't know what options judges have at their disposal in these situations.
[+] [-] err4nt|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] tptacek|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] FireBeyond|1 year ago|reply
It also affected tens of thousands of people more than a murder or kidnapping.
[+] [-] advisedwang|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] janalsncm|1 year ago|reply
On the other hand maybe a more reasonable approach would be to treat criminals as people who need to be quarantined for as long as they’re dangerous. If we could identify a treatable disease (a tumor for example) and know with 100% certainty that treating that disease could prevent further crimes, I personally wouldn’t have an issue with it. We have an impulse to punish evil, and severely punish very evil things, but it’s more of a primitive drive than anything productive. (Of course the exception is the extent to which punishment can deter crime.)
[+] [-] kernal|1 year ago|reply
How many people's lives were ruined or ended by his malfeasance? He got off lightly.
[+] [-] bambax|1 year ago|reply
Here's a live tweeting of the sentencing hearing; some of Judge Kaplan's remarks are really interesting.
https://twitter.com/innercitypress/status/177334004374401064...
[+] [-] tombert|1 year ago|reply
Sam Bankman Fried stole billions of dollars [1], probably often around $1000 at a time from tens of thousands of people. If going with my logic, he should be getting a lot longer than 25 years, upwards of hundreds or thousands of years. Obviously, it's not a linear relationship, the crime was non-violent, first-time-offender, etc. I'm just saying that 25 years seems pretty fair to me considering the magnitude of the crime.
I am one of the victims (well, of Gemini Earn anyway), and I think if I were given the choice, I'd probably sentence him to 20-25 years.
[1] Or at least so grossly mismanaged that there's no real purpose in drawing a distinction.
[+] [-] TrackerFF|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ponector|1 year ago|reply
On 8 March 2024, Hernández was convicted of three counts of drug trafficking and weapons conspiracy and faces mandatory minimum sentence of 40 years in prison.
[+] [-] helpmefindpurp|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] reso|1 year ago|reply
It's strange to say but there's an... authenticity to this that I find endearing.
[+] [-] k8svet|1 year ago|reply
So they ask if I've ever heard of "S.B.F.". After my mouth fell open and I gasped for air a few times, and demanded some proof, I got to see a not-public interview of SBF. Nothing particularly juicy, but still. I'm a nerd and I love gossip.
Apropos of nothing, other than the world is small, and weird; I guess.
[+] [-] KenArrari|1 year ago|reply
I remember even before he got arrested it seemed bizarre how much PR there was about him. Allegedly it was organic but I'm sure he was paying for a lot of it in anticipation of when he got caught.
Lots of puff pieces came out after his arrest as well which also seemed bizarrely forced.
[+] [-] ipnon|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] lamp_book|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] layer8|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] AI_beffr|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] nikolay|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] segasaturn|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] throwawayyyyy10|1 year ago|reply
What I never see acknowledged (or believed) by more lenient people is the fact that adequate punishment (sometimes harsh is adequate) serves to send a message not only to other offenders, but maybe most importantly to non-offenders, that the justice system is worth something.
"Crime doesn't pay" is to me a greater message to people who are not willing to commit crimes in the first place.
[+] [-] Crosseye_Jack|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] datavirtue|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] meindnoch|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ttymck|1 year ago|reply
> "No senior Wall Street executives were imprisoned for actions that contributed to the global financial crisis."
[+] [-] la64710|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] freejazz|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] uejfiweun|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] nemo44x|1 year ago|reply
He wasted a good part of his life.
[+] [-] 1290cc|1 year ago|reply