The sentencing of Sam Bankman-Fried this week was a disgrace. For everyone who thinks our legal system is superior to China's or Russia's, think again. The system digested a young man who is on the autism scale, chewed him up, and sentenced him to a third of his life in a prison where any talent and ability he has will go to waste.
The lawyers who practice criminal law know how difficult prison is. Explain to us how a sentence of ten years, or 3, 650 days, about 15% of a person's life expectancy, is not a deterrent?
First of all, the biggest lie/fraud in the criminal justice system is the concept of deterrence: Do people look at sentences and say to their co-conspirators "hey that guy only got ten years so let's keep committing our fraud?" Of course not.
If deterrence worked, the murder rate in Florida would be close to zero. So let's dispense with that fraud and move on to punishment.
People who think a year or five years in prison is a light sentence have never spent a day in prison. They do not know what it is like to lose your privacy, your ability to make decisions for yourself, and this doesn't even begin to address the absolute disgrace of sexual violence against female inmates by guards. Imagine being sick in prison- perhaps your appendix has burst, and you tell a guard you don't feel good and have a stomach ache and they think you're faking.
But beyond that, in a discussion about punishment for a non-violent offense, there is little to no justification for a sentence above ten years. First, post sentencing, the government takes nearly all the property of the accused. Did you know that the government can and does seek forfeiture AND restitution for the same amount of loss? When they take a bank account or home as a forfeiture, they do NOT have to credit what is taken for restitution. Don't believe us? Fight a post sentencing forfeiture where your client has paid a substantial amount of restitution, and we promise you the federal-drone-AUSA will parrot the same damn thing to you and the court in filings and during argument: "forfeiture is different from restitution" blah blah blah- they double dip.
And BTW- if you think there is ANYTHING a client can do to protect assets, you are wrong. Florida Homestead protects a home from the feds in a forfeiture? Think again- the 11th Circuit has ruled again and again that the government can take a home otherwise protected by Homestead.
So now, a year post sentencing, the government has stripped SBF's assets like a vulture picking at the bones of a jackrabbit lying dead in the desert. He will be barred from participating in the financial industry. He will not be able to get credit. He won't be able to get a job at McDonalds. Sitting ten years is more than enough of a punishment.
SBF is not Bernie Madoff. He did not steal from families, retirees, and widows. He diverted money that people invested in crypto-currency into other accounts that he- and his compatriots who all cooperated against him- used for improper purposes like personal goods, and political and charitable donations. Much of the diversion of funds was done, and suggested by those SBF trusted. And somehow all of those financial criminals got less than 10 years.
The judge was worried about future dangerousness. So that means being bankrupt, incarcerated for ten years, and subject upon release to supervised release would not stop SBF from somehow committing more crimes? We think the reason was specious. Any person has the potential to do good or bad. And what about the ability to mature and reflect upon one's crimes over ten freaking years? If SBF was sentenced when Obama was president and got out today would we all be lamenting the failure of the justice system to punish him? There are hundreds of people who commit financial frauds more sophisticated and devious than what SBF did who have received sentences in the 5-to-10 year range and somehow our financial system manages to survive with them out of prison.
The Judge's denial of the possibility of any rehabilitation and reflection was breathtakingly cruel.
What the federal system did to SBF is cruel and unusual and a dark stain on the concept of justice.
Shame on them all. We are no better than any country we scoff at.
36 comments:
The dude embezzled 8 BILLION dollars . A lot of it was small investors retirement funds. Get convicted of Grand Theft Auto and you can get 5 years in prison. 25 years for 8 Billion seems reasonable.
He did not embezzle 8 billion dollars first of all. Go back and see what embezzlement means. Second, the money was not lost- most of it was recovered. This is a business that exploded and he got way over his skis and was not equipped to deal with his success- and to me that is a significant difference between what SBF did and people like Madoff, not to mention the thousands of Miamians who opened medical clinics and just submitted tens of millions of dollars of bills with out doing any work. There is more nuance to what occurred and that does not mean I am saying he was not guilty, but we throw around numbers like 5 10, 15, 20, and 25 years like they do not really mean something and they do. This is a tragedy and is not, like many fraud cases, justice. It's the government destroying a life because the do not like the person on the other side.
He stole FTX customer funds and gave them to his own hedge fund Alameda to invest for his own profit - not for the benefits of his customers. This is not a business that got over his skill set, he stole investors money to try and make himself money. However, I will say timing was his problem and if he could've held on a little longer he may have been alright as crypto is doing better now. I do agree 25 years is a significant amount of time but not exactly an unforeseeable outcome.
He committed PERJURY. He committed WITNESS TAMPERING. He had a fiduciary duty with the life savings of so many financially unsophisticated investors and put them at risk of being broke. He had NO REMORSE. He used their life savings to try to influence a political system with his enormous donations in order to gain safety and immunity from justice.
He bought his parents a multi million dollar home will the illegal transfer of funds. He paid for private planes and luxury travel with diverted funds.
Rumpole - you must not have read the transcript of the prosecution closing summarizing ALL of the illegalities committed by this CRIMINAL.
He is not a victim that was “impacted by the Justice system. He is a mastermind of a sophisticated crook.
You let him out - with his denial of culpability - he would potentially do it again.
This is a crime at a financial level that we see just a few times in our lifetime. 25 years is REASONABLE and way below what the recommendation was. He was looking at 100 years.
Oh - he says he has AUTISM? So. How about those school shooters who were bullied secondary to their visible frailties?
Should they not get LIFE in prison because maybe they could get better with mental health care? Do you give them 10 years?
Whether you like it or not, it is usually the objective of the criminal justice system to make an example out of big shots Also (most clients don’t want to hear such a pessimistic view) but how one act’s before trial has a correlation with how they’re treated after a guilty verdict
Gee, I wonder what the Great Rumpole would have said if he had routed hundreds of thousands to Trump instead of the "Progressives?"
I agree with Rump. 7 years is enough . I've gotten pleas for murderers that were ten years less than that sentence.
BTW: I HATE Trump with a passion but that almost half a billion fine WAS outrageous. Sorry but the 175 million the appellate court lowered it to seems just about right.
I think we are going off topic.
Right. All of the things he did. 10 years prison. 5 sup release. Enough already. I could care less who he sent the money to. This is about justice and reasonableness. 10 years for a large financial crime where most of the money has been recovered is more than enough. And BTW this fed bullshit of testifying and losing and getting an obstruction of justice enhancement is a crock of shit that no other western democratic country does in its legal system as near as I can tell. It’s just a hammer congress gave prosecutors. That argument gets you nowhere. I don’t see federal agents getting charged when my client is found not guilty despite their testimony. What’s good for the goose should be good for the gander.
"Don't do the crime if you can't do the time"
White guy gets long prison term. White blogger goes nuts.
Bleeding hearts would cease to be so spirited if they were the victims of the crimes they talk about almost as if abstract
7:09 you’re an idiot. Read the blog. I’ve decried for years the treatment of young men of color especially in the enforcement of the felony murder rule and labeling of young men career criminals with lengthy prison sentences for small prions like tiny possession amount drug sales. You know nothing about what you’re posting about. Try reading before typing.
Btw just wondering how you know I’m white ?
Why hasn’t Baby MVZ been reprimanded for the Corey Smith case?
Rumpole needs to investigate more corruption
It’s clear your an older white male. Could you please link to your prior posts where you decry the excessive sentences that people of color receive every day?
Eh…I’m okay with the sentence.
That’s why we need more bloggers of color, especially black and brown bloggers.
No one will be deterred by a potential long prison sentence but not doing so will open the floodgates. Yeah, co-conspirators don't sit around with a sentencing handbook weighing the risks of committing a crime but if you put a cap of, say, one year, on these types of crime, they most asssuredly will. Ask the average person if he/she would spend a year in prison if there was a billion dollars waiting on the other end. The answer is as obvious as if you asked about 25 years instead of 1.
Don't blame the players....blame the game !!!!
While we are at it, why does DUI manslaughter take a 65 year old woman who had a bad night, has no priors and a spotless driving record and if you go to trial, you get 15 years.
“Win at all cost”
Seems like a fine sentence for a less-than-fine individual. A thief, a liar, an embezzler. Let him rot in prison for a while.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “Samuel Bankman-Fried orchestrated one of the largest financial frauds in history, stealing over $8 billion of his customers' money
Damn I hate to agree with Rumpole, but he hit the nail squarely on the head at 7:09. I would be curious to now how many white guys get referred to the feds for Felon in possession after the State screws it up at REGB as opposed to Black kids?
It’s clear I’m an older white male? Clear how ? The way I write is the only thing you have to go on.
I don’t need to justify myself to you. Read the blog. Do some searches. I’m all over the place decrying the way poor people of color are treated by the system and more importantly I spent about the last 30 years doing something about it- defending people who needed me.
Dulcinea del Toboso said... 25 feels about right. Parents letters to the judge sounded kind of nuts.
7:09 was not Rumpole
how do we know your an older white male? your love for the janet reno era marks you as an older person, likely a prosecutor in her office. aside from your blogging name your posts reek of white privilege. your casual misogyny identifies you as a man.
I think SBK received a great deal
Rumpole is in danger of dropping the ball on an old blog tradition - the annual April Fools post.
Could not agree more. Our citizenry is obsessed with the idea of locking people in cages without ever having been in the cages. This is the same emotion/behavior which made them obsessed with watching public executions from the time of the Colosseums to now. 25 years is insane. Everyone gets to go say “yeah 25 years that’s right!” like it’s a sports win, then they go get their Starbucks and forget all about the guy they condoned to that cage. All the people who are championing the sentence will forget about it within a year, if not the same day.
As someone who has served time in federal prison for something legal in almost every country in the world (but this one because we are sort of hypocritical and backward), I invite you to be intellectually curious and read what happens in prisons, especially for those with disabilities of any kind (yes, being on the spectrum it is a disability, irrespective to how functional people are). I have a learning disability. Ask me how many programs I benefited from: none. Incarcerated individuals get abused by correctional officers, who at times seem to have committed more crimes than us. Many had to “retire” to save face (ask Warden Gio Ramirez at the FDC Miami). Programs are non-existent since federal prisons are understaffed (let’s face it, who would want to work for an agency with such discredit, which portrays zero accountability). To be clear, I am not an abolitionist because part of being intellectually honest is to understand that actions have consequences, but I can't entirely agree with the system that we have now. As a society, we must reimagine correctional places where proper rehabilitation is possible, where people get the help and resources they need, and also meaningful opportunities to reenter society after their release. As taxpayers, you should be furious that your tax dollars are wasted on something so corrupt. And if you believe in restorative justice, a lengthy sentence in cases where restitution is required delays the ability of the victims to collect (newsflash, we get paid $0.17 per hour in prison). And even if you don't believe in fundamental fairness or any of the above, the current system will perpetuate recidivism, directly affecting public safety.
Great example of deterrence working has been the Jan 6 prosecutions. Why do you think none the wingnuts showed up to riot when Trump got arraigned ? They saw all thier comrades doing time and figured it wasn’t worth it.
Punishment, rather than rehabilitation, is the basis for incarceration. Read your Florida Constitution. Also, financial crimes have a huge impact on the victims, enough with the “wasn’t my money, set em free!!” bullshoot.
Rump I usually agree with you, but i think 25years is reasonable in this case. Dude should’ve taken a plea deal off the ripper. Should’ve never gone to trial. This was an open shut case.
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