Could Sam Bankman-Fried go to prison for the FTX disaster?
26 points by abriosi 2 years ago | 33 comments- LatteLazy 2 years agoIf you do something with money, or the internet there is a law somewhere in the US codex that you are breaking. So yes, of course he could.
The US, rightly or wrongly, tries and often succeeds in enforcing it's laws internationally. Even in cases NOT involving US persons and with no apparent victims. So there is no reason to think this would be different. And that is ignoring the fact that FTX has (had?) a sub-venue called "FTX US" specifically for US persons, which has also failed.
Also, there are a whole bunch of crimes (including wire fraud) where the definition of the crime makes intent so low, it is no barrier to prosecution. This is why you often see major frauds charged as more minor crimes: Fraud requires intent, Wire Fraud just requires a lie, a phone line and some profit.
- joenot443 2 years agoIf he did, I think it'd be the first time a top 3 Democrat donor goes to prison. If I had to make a guess, I'd imagine the current government which he helped fund will be kind to him.
- freejazz 2 years agoDid you even bother to google something like "Top democratic donor jailed" before posting this?
- joenot443 2 years ago
- freejazz 2 years agoYour post is completely made up, and remains so, so I'm not sure why you are criticizing my comment. And yeah, Buck is a result that hits from the past few months. I'm just wondering what you actually did to reach the belief that big democratic donors don't ever go to jail? Like, any research at all?
- freejazz 2 years ago
- joenot443 2 years ago
- starkd 2 years agoOf course, there is the exception Harvey Weinstein. But his situation was difficult to sugar-coat.
- phone8675309 2 years agoIf he's arrested I wouldn't be surprised if the guards that are supposed to enforce the suicide watch take a long break and come back to find him dead.
- freejazz 2 years ago
- hyperboreanChad 2 years ago
- freddealmeida 2 years ago
- norwalkbear 2 years agoHe absolutely should but he's friends with too many rich and powerful people. His mother is connected deeply with the Biden Administration. Sam was very close to Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. FTX had articles on them by the WEF.
- lupire 2 years ago"showed up at the same party" is not "very close".
- nativespecies 2 years agoIt's the new right wing boogeyman - crypto and Dem evil! Collusion!
- nativespecies 2 years ago
- commandlinefan 2 years ago> Sam was very close to Bill Clinton and Tony Blair
So were Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislane Maxwell - it didn't save them.
- seanw444 2 years agoThey gained mass media attention.
- seanw444 2 years ago
- hyperboreanChad 2 years ago
- lupire 2 years ago
- suslik 2 years agoWhat is the point in throwing someone who didn't commit violent crimes in prison? Punishment? Vengeance?
- bsg75 2 years agoYes, punishment, which, in part serves as an example to others that this is absolutely unacceptable practice, and our society cannot allow it to happen. “CEO Sam Bankman-Fried used customer funds from the exchange to plug losses in his failing crypto empire.” it is very well known this is illegal and unethical behavior. No mistakes were made here, it’s outright, decisive fraud.
If an executive of a business willfully, miss manages customers money, for example in a Ponzi scheme, that has repercussions that can damage a chain of people, some of which did not directly invest.
What would you suggest happens to people like this guy and Bernie Madoff instead? A strong, talking to?
- suslik 2 years agoI don't know exactly, but of what use is prison in this case besides inflicting unnecessary suffering? There probably is no hand-wavy answer to this, but surely it is possible to come up with sufficient civic restrictions on him to prevent him from committing similar types of crimes. For instance, there is a precedent for restricting a person's access to digital technology. Even house arrest is way more humane (and probably also an overkill).
- ehzy 2 years agoTheft and fraud on this scale is absolutely violence in some sense. Don't assume everyone that lost money could afford to lose it. The second order consequences of this fraud are likely severe.
- freejazz 2 years agoPutting him in prison, ostensibly, makes it less likely for someone to want to do what he did. You know, the whole "repercussions" thing? After all, if you stole a billion dollars and all they did was prohibit you from using a computer, why not try?
- ehzy 2 years ago
- starkd 2 years agoHe also put the reputation of the entire crypto eco-system in jeopardy.
- throwaway5959 2 years agoThe reputation of the crypto eco-system is already trash. No one serious puts a non-trivial amount of money in this garbage.
- throwaway5959 2 years ago
- suslik 2 years ago
- lupire 2 years agoHe stole people's home money and food money. That is violence.
- suslik 2 years agoThis makes the term 'violence' useless. He didn't use physical force or any other form of power to force anyone to do anything; instead, he lied to people, convincing them to transfer their money to his platform voluntarily.
- someguy212 2 years agoIf I steal your life-saving medication resulting in your death, do I deserve jailtime?
- djinnandtonic 2 years agoWould you imprison a burglar that jimmies your lock while you are away? If so, what is the difference?
- someguy212 2 years ago
- suslik 2 years ago
- dsfyu404ed 2 years agoAn even more interesting question is how HN justifies the reaction you're getting for this comment in this thread with the reaction you'd get for the same comment in one of our typical "complain about the court/prison system" threads.
Only so much flagrant cognitive dissonance can sail under the flag of "the community is not homogenous and people pick and choose where to comment".
We can pick the "law, order and punishment" route or we can pick the rehabilitation route but lets at least be consistent once we've chosen a path. Picking and choosing on a case by case basis enables all sorts of terrible miscarriages of justice.
- lupire 2 years agoYou are saying that the people who think that smoking pot deserves less punishment than stealing $1B, are the dissonant ones?
- dsfyu404ed 2 years agoI'm saying that the people who advocate for or cheer on others advocating for "keep nonviolent criminals out of prison" in one context and then advocate for the opposite or don't let out a peep when others do in the case of a crime they don't like are exhibiting noteworthy amounts of cognitive dissonance. And IMO such cognitive dissonance is fundamentally incompatible with equality under the law.
I'm also saying that "advocating for keeping nonviolent criminals out of prison in one context" and "advocating for the opposite in other contexts" happen to consistently to be explained by selection bias alone.
- dsfyu404ed 2 years ago
- starkd 2 years agoThe courts do this all the time. This is why justice is symbolized by a scale that is a constant balancing act between justice and mercy.
- lupire 2 years ago
- bsg75 2 years ago