> Adding up all the statutory maximum sentences for all the counts charged in an indictment is an exercise in clickbait disinformation
Its not, even in the context where that is true [0] when the guidelines range calculated based on the facts charged plauisbly meet or exceed the sum of the statutory maximums for the individual offenses.
And $ amounts involved are a factor in the sentencing guidelines, and while there have been some changes to what is charged, I remember guidelinea calculations based on the original indictment were off the chart and I don't think the changes have done anythinf which would make that less true.
[0] the calculation is always an important fact, because it bounds the legal range of sentences, and even where thr guidelines make a sentence unlikely, the guidelines are not mandatory, and departures both above and below thr guidelines are within the power of federal judges, only the statutory minimums and maximums are hard limits, but it can sometimes be misleading to present the maximum sentence as likely on conviction.
At no point during the process of sentencing calculation does the idea of "let's add up all of the charges and their combined sentences" get applied. That's not how federal sentencing guidelines work, is the point. It can still be a Very Long Time (Ken White calls this the "life plus cancer" treatment), but that number isn't arrived at as described by the submitted article.
From the article I linked (emphasis mine):
> First, the core of the Post’s article is a splashy infographic meant to act as Resistance porn. It adds up, on a Candyland-style path, the maximum sentence on each count in the New York state indictment against Trump, the Florida federal indictment for wrongfully retaining documents, and the new Washington D.C. indictment for his January 6 fraud. The infographic is plainly the beating clickbait heart of the piece. It’s also completely useless. The combined maximum sentences from the three cases is a meaningless, masturbatory number. It has nothing to do with what federal sentences he faces, as I note above, and New York criminal law experts (and I am not one) say that the maximum sentences in that case have nothing to do with the plausible sentence he faces there.
> At no point during the process of sentencing calculation does the idea of "let's add up all of the charges and their combined sentences" get applied.
That's both, in the general case, technically true (the processes isn't adding up all the statutory maxima at one point) and substantively false (as for each charge, the sentence is clamped to the statutory range, and thus the sum of the statutory ranges is the actual legal maximum that can be applied, even though at no point in the sentencing calculation are the statutory maxima summed to get to the actual sentence; the actual sentences that are scheduled to run consecutively, which are already clamped to the statutory range, are summed.) Moreover, its particularly wrong, IIRC, and if the various changes to the charges haven't changed this, in SBF's case, because working through the facts in the indictment at least originally against the guidelines calculations for each charge very plausibly reached a guidelines range at or beyond the statutory maximum.
> That's not how federal sentencing guidelines work,
Federal sentencing guidelines are not mandatory, and federal courts can make departures within the range between the statutory minimum and statutory maximum above or below the guideline sentence. They are, to borrow from Pirates of the Carribean, more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules. Moreover, clamping sentence for each charge to the statutory range is exactly how the guidelines work.
Yes, it would be very useful (though highly subjective; even when departures aren't ultimately involved, whether conditions in the guidelines are applicable based on the jury verdict and the evidence at trial is the domain of often extensive post-verdict litigation that can amount to a mini-bench-trial on the guidelines; jounralists predicting the outcome of such would be getting in to highly speculative and error-prone rather than fact-based reporting) for coverage of federal criminal trials to present useful context around how the guidelines might apply based on the facts alleged in the indictment.
Popehat's repeated banging on the point that the reporting by the media of statutory ranges is generally useless for any real purpose is accurate and something that adds to the knowledge of someone who encounters it who has no pre-existing knowledge of how federal sentencing works. And for people who get the oversimplified idea from it that "adding up the sum of the statutory maxima never tells you what the realistic outer limit is for sentence in federal criminal cases, it is always significantly lower" will probably, for most cases they see reported in the media, mostly not have the wrong idea, even if they are working from a rule that is almost as oversimplified as "the sum of the federal statutory maxima is a realistic, if guaranteed to not be low, sentence estimate in federal criminal cases in general".
But several facts remain true:
1. The sum of the statutory maxima is the actual legal maximum total sentence, and
2. There are cases where that will ultimately set the maximum sentence under the guidelines, because the pre-clamping guidelines range for each conviction will exceed the statutory maximum,
3. There are cases where the actual sentence will exceed the guidelines sentence, and the maximum there will still be that set by the statutory limits on each offense.
To actually assess the likely range of federal sentences for a given indictment, you would need to review the indictment, the guidelines, and try to assess each of the potential guidelines factors against the allegations in the indictment (both the full set of facts alleged and the set of alleged facts that would allow conviction on each charge but produce the minimum guidelines range), and then compute what the actual sentence would be for the various possibilities under the guidelines, and then be familiar ...
1 is false based on the article I linked, and 2 and 3 are irrelevant. I am going to trust a former federal prosecutor and current federal criminal defense attorney over dragonwriter of HN on topics related to federal sentencing guidelines.
TIL. Wikipedia has an article on federal parole[0], and the first citation in the References section is to a PDF (now available only from Archive.org) that clearly explains why federal parole was abolished in the 1980s.
Interesting. At first I thought banning parole makes sense (instead of max sentence + parole give a reasonable term) but apparently the reason is people stopped believing criminals can be rehabilitated via prison:
> Americans became more concerned with ensuring that people were punished – often severely – and began to doubt that prison could rehabilitate a person. The SRA rejected rehabilitation as the primary goal of our sentencing system. Instead, it stated that the purpose of imprisonment is punishment.
I suspect that it is out of the question, because the president would suffer from a lot of political blowback if a pardon was issued. Any president would have to gain something greater than the cost of that blowback. What would be the upside?
Hunter could get a juicy new gig at a crypto firm. Or be the head of a new ICO for a hookers and blow coin. Maybe a NFT of his “ART”. Oh the possibilities
It's a realistic range for someone who's maxed out the federal sentencing guidelines—whose alleged crimes are off the scale.
- "adding up the time for each charge is journalistic malpractice"
I agree with you 100%, 99% of the time. Adding together the statutory limits, and publishing that without context, is journalistic malpractice (but great clickbait!). But it's not entirely wrong in this, exceptional outlier, case.
I look then to Section 5G1.2{d) of the guidelines, which
tells us that where there are multiple counts, and the
guideline range exceeds the statutory maximum for the most
serious count, the court must impose consecutive terms of
imprisonment to the extent necessary to achieve the total
punishment.
There is a little bit of ambiguity, however, as to
what is meant by "total punishment" where the guideline
calculation calls for ~ife imprisonment, but Second Circuit
case law makes clear that in such a situation, the district
court is to stack or add up the maximum sentences for all
the counts.
In United States v. Evans, for example, 352 F.3d 65,
where the guideline calculation called for life
imprisonment but no count carried a life sentence, the
court held that the guideline range is 240 years, the
maximum sentences for all the counts added together.
Accordingly, here the guideline range is not life
imprisonment, but 150 years, the maximum sentences for each
of the 11 counts added together.
It isn't realistic at all, because that's not how federal sentencing guidelines work.
If the crimes are similar, the judge is going to lump them together and pick the longest sentence as the one to serve. The rest will be served concurrently.
I'm just reciting what commentators, like this former AUSA [0], are writing. Andrew McCarthy (linked) easily gets to the maximum offense level of 43. I'm not pretending to know how to apply these D&D rules myself.
[edit]: And Braden Perry, a former CFTC lawyer, also agrees with the offense level of 43 [1]. They seem to do different calculations to get to that: McCarthy applies an enhancement for "organizer or leader of a criminal activity that involved five or more participants or was otherwise extensive", while Perry finds one for "having 25 or more victims".
To be fair: they also both agree a court could deviate downwards, if they find mitigating factors. That seems to be a key variable here: how many downward adjustments can the defense convince the court to apply.
Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison, back in 2009 [1].
He died 12 years into the sentence, in 2021, so I suppose it's possible he'd have been released early due to factors like good behaviour? Still, three-digit sentences have been seen before, and not every white collar criminal gets off with a slap on the wrist, even if a great many of them do.
Technically Bernie could’ve gotten a 35(b) cooperation all the way to being released after a few years. Or even more unlikely he could have successfully appealed his sentence. Or gotten a commuted but not pardoned sentence.
None of this happened but a pardon isn’t the only way.
If the crimes are similar, the judge is going to lump them together and pick the longest sentence as the one to serve. The rest will be served concurrently.
This depends on the nature and scope of the crime. If there is one major crime and a number of smaller supporting crimes, judges will usually pick the longest sentence and the other sentences are imposed concurrently, the theory being that the smaller crimes are really just dependent parts of carrying out the bigger crime.
If there are several major crimes, judges will frequently impose consecutive sentences, especially if there is a series or pattern of major crimes. (For example, serial rapists, serial murderers, etc.) Generally, this is rare for white collar crimes, with the exception of standouts like Bernie Madoff (serial fraud).
Scope-wise, SBF has Madoff beat. And while he doesn't have the same length of offending as Madoff, he did commit a series of major crimes. It is thus realistic that the judge would sentence SBF to consecutive sentences if he is convicted on all counts.
> This depends on the nature and scope of the crime. If there is one major crime and a number of smaller supporting crimes, judges will usually pick the longest sentence and the other sentences are imposed concurrently, the theory being that the smaller crimes are really just dependent parts of carrying out the bigger crime.
That might be the theory in state cases, in federal cases following the Sentencing Guidelines, that often happens because if the total punishment calculated for the combination of offenses fits into a sentence available for the single crime with the maximum available punishment, the guidelines instruct that it be done that way (and, if not, they instruct that enough of the other sentences run consecutively to meet the calculated total punishment.)
This rule works independently of the structure of multiple major offenses or one major and many minor offenses, although it may tend to produce results roughly in line w8th the dichotomy you propose.
> If the crimes are similar, the judge is going to lump them together and pick the longest sentence as the one to serve
That's not how it works. The guidelines calculation is done based on all offenses, a total punishment is calculated, and “If the sentence imposed on the count carrying the highest statutory maximum is less than the total punishment, then the sentence imposed on one or more of the other counts shall run consecutively, but only to the extent necessary to produce a combined sentence equal to the total punishment.” US Sentencing Commission Guidelines Manual 2023, §5G1.2(d)
To be clear, you are referring to the complicated / rigid way that federal sentencing guidelines operates (via its point system and previous criminal history status, and especially the consolidation of like-infractions), right?
Obviously nobody knows for sure but him and his lawyer, but almost definitely he just didn't listen to his lawyer because he thought he could convince the jury.
In short: His goose was already cooked, he did so much brazenly stupid stuff in full view of the public and ran his mouth off after doing it that the case looked like a slam dunk. If he went on the stand he at least had a chance of convincing the jury that he was unaware that everyone around him was committing fraud. He didn't have much to lose.
Depends on if it was his lawyer's strategy or if it was his own idea (and I'm guessing it was the latter, just based on the prior behavior of "can't shut the fuck up and stop digging own grave")
If it was his idea, it often goes like:
(a) I am very smart, (b) I've always gotten my way by being very smart, (c) I (think I) am smarter than everyone who will be in the courtroom, and therefore (d) I'll get my way out of this by being smart.
Lot of smart people in fields other than law think that it'll translate to law. It doesn't, typically.
You see a less extreme form of this on HN frequently where people try to treat law as some boolean code thing, with statements like "well technically it says XYZ and because of ABC constraint...", when the reality is that any judge will take a look at the situation and wave the heavy wand of "spirit of the law" or whatever.
If it was his lawyer's idea, then I guess probably he decided case was already 99.9% lost, might as well hailmary it and see what happens.
He "donated" (in other countries it is called bribed) enough money to enough politicians to not get in any serious trouble, maybe a slap on the wrist is what he'll get
> Bankman-Fried was the second biggest Democratic-leaning megadonor this election cycle, according to OpenSecrets data. Only about $235,000 of his total political giving went toward Republican candidates.
SBF was giving to the dems, his Co-CEO of FTX, Ryan Salame was giving to the republicans.
> FTX-linked donations last election cycle favored Democrats, with at least $44.6 million going to liberal candidates, causes and PACs, and at least $23.9 million going to Republicans. [1]
You know who isn't going to be going to prison forever? Ryan Salame. He's looking at giving up his Porche, and ten years maximum, probably less, given that he's co-operating.
Sure, but the question was about which party SBF donated to. This thread and the article is about SBF.
Though I do think Ryan Salame mainly donated to non-partisan crypto PACs, but quite a bit did go to Rs, including $400k to his girlfriend.
But yeah, the plea deals are ridiculously lax, but SBF will just get pardoned by a outgoing D president like they did Susan Rosenberg, so he's good too.
Only about $235,000 of his total political giving went toward Republican candidates.
This is false.
At trial, the prosecutors introduced evidence that more than $10 million went to Republican candidates, including the GOP Senate Minority Leader. Another $50+ million went to dark money organizations favoring Republican policies. All told, SBF and FTX (at SBF's direction) made over $100+ million in political donations, spread evenly between the two parties.
A jury does not generally review each piece of evidence to determine whether the evidence is "valid" or not.
This evidence was already introduced at trial (in support of the conspiracy charges, since the campaign financing charge was dropped back in August). This means that the judge already reviewed it and deemed it to be valid, admissible evidence. (That happens before a trial, not after it, though in some cases may happen during a trial with the jury excused from the courtroom.)
It's weird to blindly believe OpenSecrets, which also does not link to supporting documents, while disbelieving widely-reported news reporting that has been covered for the past year...without any refutation by the Republican beneficiaries of SBF's donations.
I never understand how people think this works. Do you believe the judicial system in America is a farce and under the control of the executive branch? Or maybe the legislative branch?
Do you think a Senator can call up the judge and demand a lenient sentence?
Btw, "fun" fact - Theranos CEO was not convicted of defrauding patients or employees. She was only convicted of defrauding investors (many of whom were famous politicians like Kissinger and Shultz)
> Btw, "fun" fact - Theranos CEO was not convicted of defrauding patients or employees. She was only convicted of defrauding investors (many of whom were famous politicians like Kissinger and Shultz)
And Capone was convicted of tax evasion. So what? Holmes got 11.5 years. Does that seem like there was some undue interference on her behalf? Because I would be pretty disappointed if that's the best sentence I could get.
I'm interested in understanding the chronology of that investment from Kissinger. He is listed as a board member. I wonder how many people invested after he went on the board? He is now a victim but I wonder how many times he promoted Theranos publicly or privately to increase the value of his investment and with what kind of platform given his name and position.
I would not know how that works, but I can recall a "strange" order of judicial events in the Alstom buyout by General Electric. Frédéric Pierucci was incarcerated for some weird foreign bribery charges, refused to be an FBI informant, and was released once Alstom was sold. He wrote a book about it. It really seems he was held as an economic hostage.
So when you learn about that, it's easier to think that the justice branch is much much closer to the executive branch than what it seems.
If I were the French government and Frédéric Pierucci were taken hostage why would I give a flying somethingorother. What leverage did the USA gain from holding this man? Ok, if they had taken Macron's daughter, or a bus full of french school children I might buy it... but a energy company exec?
Indeed (to steal wording from the Wikipedia article) if I had been in charge in France and really thought this was happening I'd have taken some hostages of my own ! They would have been arrested on drugs and sex charges, I'd have had the security services fabricating lots of juicy stuff etc etc etc.
When you imprison someone until they become a spy in the company you're trying to buy, do you really think there is no outcome where you might gain leverage?
Justices are nominated by the president and confirmed by the senate.
If a judge is pleasing enough to the president (& senate), they can be appointed to the supreme court.
Certain individuals may be pursued more or less aggressively by the DOJ.
You got your Joe Arpaios who do their thing for years and years and declare that they won't co-operate with investigations, and wind up with a Trump pardon. And Jeffrey Epstein in the 2005-2008 years.
On the other hand you have your Snowdens, Assanges, Kim Dotcoms and Aaron Swartzes that the US will happily pursue indefinitely and across borders.
All I know is if I ran official state business (full of classified stuff) through a sever in my basement my biggest problem wouldn't be losing an election.
Although I also wouldn't throw a hissy fit until I got to bring my blackberry into scifs so that's neither here nor there.
In the recent Painkiller miniseries [1], which is supposed to be about Purdue Pharma, what you describe above is basically how things worked. There's a key scene in which Rudy Giuliani calls in some favor, which results in a prosecutor being significantly influenced by the White House. I don't know if this actually precisely happened, but this portrayal on Netflix speaks to "how people thinks this works" and why.
> Do you believe the judicial system in America is a farce and under the control of the executive branch?
It's pretty well known that if you're Steve Bannon or Scooter Libby or Paul Pogue you can get a pardon.
It's also pretty well known that if you're Brock Turner the judge can let you off with a slap on the wrist because he likes you.
I believe there have also been a number of cases in the US where cops have killed people in custody and gone unpunished for various reasons.
And there have been various controversies about, e.g. firing US attorneys who investigated one party's politicians and firing others for not investigating the other party's politicians.
And of course it's well known that the Supreme Court are political appointees with specific party loyalties.
With all that said it's very unlikely anyone's going to intervene in favour of Bankman-Fried - I'd wager he's too high-profile for an intervention to be swept under the rug, and and not enough of an insider for anyone to intervene anyway and take the heat.
Looks like he's finally listening to his lawyers! Before his bail was reluctantly revoked, he was generating an astonishing stream of evidence for the prosecution.
He still isn't. It looks utterly horrible when he provides an incredibly detailed account that paints him in a positive light, but then can't give a straight answer when the prosecutor asks him what he had for breakfast, or why his testimony directly contradicts Exhibits A, B, C, and D - documents/e-mails that he signed/sent.
His defense plan seems to be 'throw a mountain of shit at the jury, maybe some of it will confuse them enough.'
Maybe my Matt Levine reading is showing, but doesn't that seem like obviously his best plan? They did a bunch of crime, wrote a bunch of documents about all the crime they were doing, and all the people he told to do crime are testifying about how he told them to do crime - it is difficult to come up with a sensible way to defend against that case. But it's easy to hope that you can bamboozle one juror with the same bamboozling techniques that worked on all the VCs. It's transparently not a good plan, but it doesn't have to be, it just has to be better than the other options.
I dunno. If he's sure that he'll be convicted, then it seems that a better plan would be to cooperate fully, show actual remorse, and plead guilty in the hopes of getting the lightest possible sentence.
That's really the only other option, yeah, but it's hard to judge whether it's better. There's not really any incentive for leniency, he's the big fish and they want to make an example of him, otherwise what's the point of giving all the subordinates deals? Maybe some contrition would get a perfunctory sentence reduction but I would absolutely trust a legal analysis saying he's already so screwed that trying for a hung jury is worth it.
Even if it didn't result in a lighter sentence, it's still better in that there's no downside to doing it and it's worth a shot.
Doing what he's done means that there's nearly zero chance of leniency. I'd take even a small chance of leniency over a tiny chance of it.
It's also possible, as delusional as it would be, that he really thinks he's in the right here and is standing on principle. If that's the case, then he's doing what he should do.
i mean, to be fair, shouldn't justice be swift? in the time its taken me to get my case heard, ive had kids, moved twice, changed jobs.. i legit am just going off my notes at this stage and the rest is made up..
That's likely because one of the first things you did was waive your right to a speedy trial on the advice of your attorney. That's one of the first things any wise attorney will advise their client to do.
93 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 165 ms ] thread> Adding up all the statutory maximum sentences for all the counts charged in an indictment is an exercise in clickbait disinformation. [0]
[0] https://popehat.substack.com/p/beware-the-flood-of-trump-sen...
Its not, even in the context where that is true [0] when the guidelines range calculated based on the facts charged plauisbly meet or exceed the sum of the statutory maximums for the individual offenses.
And $ amounts involved are a factor in the sentencing guidelines, and while there have been some changes to what is charged, I remember guidelinea calculations based on the original indictment were off the chart and I don't think the changes have done anythinf which would make that less true.
[0] the calculation is always an important fact, because it bounds the legal range of sentences, and even where thr guidelines make a sentence unlikely, the guidelines are not mandatory, and departures both above and below thr guidelines are within the power of federal judges, only the statutory minimums and maximums are hard limits, but it can sometimes be misleading to present the maximum sentence as likely on conviction.
From the article I linked (emphasis mine):
> First, the core of the Post’s article is a splashy infographic meant to act as Resistance porn. It adds up, on a Candyland-style path, the maximum sentence on each count in the New York state indictment against Trump, the Florida federal indictment for wrongfully retaining documents, and the new Washington D.C. indictment for his January 6 fraud. The infographic is plainly the beating clickbait heart of the piece. It’s also completely useless. The combined maximum sentences from the three cases is a meaningless, masturbatory number. It has nothing to do with what federal sentences he faces, as I note above, and New York criminal law experts (and I am not one) say that the maximum sentences in that case have nothing to do with the plausible sentence he faces there.
That's both, in the general case, technically true (the processes isn't adding up all the statutory maxima at one point) and substantively false (as for each charge, the sentence is clamped to the statutory range, and thus the sum of the statutory ranges is the actual legal maximum that can be applied, even though at no point in the sentencing calculation are the statutory maxima summed to get to the actual sentence; the actual sentences that are scheduled to run consecutively, which are already clamped to the statutory range, are summed.) Moreover, its particularly wrong, IIRC, and if the various changes to the charges haven't changed this, in SBF's case, because working through the facts in the indictment at least originally against the guidelines calculations for each charge very plausibly reached a guidelines range at or beyond the statutory maximum.
> That's not how federal sentencing guidelines work,
Federal sentencing guidelines are not mandatory, and federal courts can make departures within the range between the statutory minimum and statutory maximum above or below the guideline sentence. They are, to borrow from Pirates of the Carribean, more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules. Moreover, clamping sentence for each charge to the statutory range is exactly how the guidelines work.
Yes, it would be very useful (though highly subjective; even when departures aren't ultimately involved, whether conditions in the guidelines are applicable based on the jury verdict and the evidence at trial is the domain of often extensive post-verdict litigation that can amount to a mini-bench-trial on the guidelines; jounralists predicting the outcome of such would be getting in to highly speculative and error-prone rather than fact-based reporting) for coverage of federal criminal trials to present useful context around how the guidelines might apply based on the facts alleged in the indictment.
Popehat's repeated banging on the point that the reporting by the media of statutory ranges is generally useless for any real purpose is accurate and something that adds to the knowledge of someone who encounters it who has no pre-existing knowledge of how federal sentencing works. And for people who get the oversimplified idea from it that "adding up the sum of the statutory maxima never tells you what the realistic outer limit is for sentence in federal criminal cases, it is always significantly lower" will probably, for most cases they see reported in the media, mostly not have the wrong idea, even if they are working from a rule that is almost as oversimplified as "the sum of the federal statutory maxima is a realistic, if guaranteed to not be low, sentence estimate in federal criminal cases in general".
But several facts remain true:
1. The sum of the statutory maxima is the actual legal maximum total sentence, and
2. There are cases where that will ultimately set the maximum sentence under the guidelines, because the pre-clamping guidelines range for each conviction will exceed the statutory maximum,
3. There are cases where the actual sentence will exceed the guidelines sentence, and the maximum there will still be that set by the statutory limits on each offense.
To actually assess the likely range of federal sentences for a given indictment, you would need to review the indictment, the guidelines, and try to assess each of the potential guidelines factors against the allegations in the indictment (both the full set of facts alleged and the set of alleged facts that would allow conviction on each charge but produce the minimum guidelines range), and then compute what the actual sentence would be for the various possibilities under the guidelines, and then be familiar ...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_parole_in_the_United_S...
> Americans became more concerned with ensuring that people were punished – often severely – and began to doubt that prison could rehabilitate a person. The SRA rejected rehabilitation as the primary goal of our sentencing system. Instead, it stated that the purpose of imprisonment is punishment.
- "adding up the time for each charge is journalistic malpractice"
I agree with you 100%, 99% of the time. Adding together the statutory limits, and publishing that without context, is journalistic malpractice (but great clickbait!). But it's not entirely wrong in this, exceptional outlier, case.
"A long time" does not equate to "simplistic addition-based sentencing calculation".
Yes, he was.
https://www.justice.gov/media/785641/dl?inline
If the crimes are similar, the judge is going to lump them together and pick the longest sentence as the one to serve. The rest will be served concurrently.
[edit]: And Braden Perry, a former CFTC lawyer, also agrees with the offense level of 43 [1]. They seem to do different calculations to get to that: McCarthy applies an enhancement for "organizer or leader of a criminal activity that involved five or more participants or was otherwise extensive", while Perry finds one for "having 25 or more victims".
To be fair: they also both agree a court could deviate downwards, if they find mitigating factors. That seems to be a key variable here: how many downward adjustments can the defense convince the court to apply.
[0] https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/01/federal-sentencing-gu... ("Federal Sentencing Guidelines Spell Deep Trouble for Sam Bankman-Fried")
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/05/sam-bankman-fried-could-face... ("Sam Bankman-Fried could face years in prison over FTX's $32 billion meltdown — if the U.S. ever gets around to arresting him")
He died 12 years into the sentence, in 2021, so I suppose it's possible he'd have been released early due to factors like good behaviour? Still, three-digit sentences have been seen before, and not every white collar criminal gets off with a slap on the wrist, even if a great many of them do.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Madoff#Plea,_sentencing...
The only way Bernie would have gotten out would have been with a pardon.
None of this happened but a pardon isn’t the only way.
This depends on the nature and scope of the crime. If there is one major crime and a number of smaller supporting crimes, judges will usually pick the longest sentence and the other sentences are imposed concurrently, the theory being that the smaller crimes are really just dependent parts of carrying out the bigger crime.
If there are several major crimes, judges will frequently impose consecutive sentences, especially if there is a series or pattern of major crimes. (For example, serial rapists, serial murderers, etc.) Generally, this is rare for white collar crimes, with the exception of standouts like Bernie Madoff (serial fraud).
Scope-wise, SBF has Madoff beat. And while he doesn't have the same length of offending as Madoff, he did commit a series of major crimes. It is thus realistic that the judge would sentence SBF to consecutive sentences if he is convicted on all counts.
That might be the theory in state cases, in federal cases following the Sentencing Guidelines, that often happens because if the total punishment calculated for the combination of offenses fits into a sentence available for the single crime with the maximum available punishment, the guidelines instruct that it be done that way (and, if not, they instruct that enough of the other sentences run consecutively to meet the calculated total punishment.)
This rule works independently of the structure of multiple major offenses or one major and many minor offenses, although it may tend to produce results roughly in line w8th the dichotomy you propose.
That's not how it works. The guidelines calculation is done based on all offenses, a total punishment is calculated, and “If the sentence imposed on the count carrying the highest statutory maximum is less than the total punishment, then the sentence imposed on one or more of the other counts shall run consecutively, but only to the extent necessary to produce a combined sentence equal to the total punishment.” US Sentencing Commission Guidelines Manual 2023, §5G1.2(d)
https://www.ussc.gov/guidelines/2023-guidelines-manual/annot...
LegalEagle taught me what I know about this topic: https://youtu.be/kr8gSdJ_Ggw?si=GVELc4ETIbg3FcB3
Well at least they weren’t intimating that the Bureau of Prisons had a state of the art life extension program.
If it was his idea, it often goes like:
(a) I am very smart, (b) I've always gotten my way by being very smart, (c) I (think I) am smarter than everyone who will be in the courtroom, and therefore (d) I'll get my way out of this by being smart.
Lot of smart people in fields other than law think that it'll translate to law. It doesn't, typically.
You see a less extreme form of this on HN frequently where people try to treat law as some boolean code thing, with statements like "well technically it says XYZ and because of ABC constraint...", when the reality is that any judge will take a look at the situation and wave the heavy wand of "spirit of the law" or whatever.
If it was his lawyer's idea, then I guess probably he decided case was already 99.9% lost, might as well hailmary it and see what happens.
Me too. I can't imagine any competent lawyer thinking it's a good idea to have him on the stand.
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/11/megadonor-no-more-s...
> FTX-linked donations last election cycle favored Democrats, with at least $44.6 million going to liberal candidates, causes and PACs, and at least $23.9 million going to Republicans. [1]
You know who isn't going to be going to prison forever? Ryan Salame. He's looking at giving up his Porche, and ten years maximum, probably less, given that he's co-operating.
[1] https://rollcall.com/2023/02/23/ftx-leaders-political-donati....
Though I do think Ryan Salame mainly donated to non-partisan crypto PACs, but quite a bit did go to Rs, including $400k to his girlfriend.
But yeah, the plea deals are ridiculously lax, but SBF will just get pardoned by a outgoing D president like they did Susan Rosenberg, so he's good too.
This is false.
At trial, the prosecutors introduced evidence that more than $10 million went to Republican candidates, including the GOP Senate Minority Leader. Another $50+ million went to dark money organizations favoring Republican policies. All told, SBF and FTX (at SBF's direction) made over $100+ million in political donations, spread evenly between the two parties.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/20/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-allies...
We will find out at the end of the trial what is ruled as valid evidence or not.
(your source does not link "The documents" they reference so noone can verify)
A jury does not generally review each piece of evidence to determine whether the evidence is "valid" or not.
This evidence was already introduced at trial (in support of the conspiracy charges, since the campaign financing charge was dropped back in August). This means that the judge already reviewed it and deemed it to be valid, admissible evidence. (That happens before a trial, not after it, though in some cases may happen during a trial with the jury excused from the courtroom.)
It's weird to blindly believe OpenSecrets, which also does not link to supporting documents, while disbelieving widely-reported news reporting that has been covered for the past year...without any refutation by the Republican beneficiaries of SBF's donations.
Open Secrets' data is just processed FEC data, you don't have to "believe" Open Secrets, you can verify the numbers yourself:
https://www.fec.gov/introduction-campaign-finance/data-tutor...
My point was we don't have the data you are referencing to verify it the same way.
Or do you??? (a CNBC article w/ no reference does not count)
Do you think a Senator can call up the judge and demand a lenient sentence?
And why would the judge care?
Under influence - for sure.
Btw, "fun" fact - Theranos CEO was not convicted of defrauding patients or employees. She was only convicted of defrauding investors (many of whom were famous politicians like Kissinger and Shultz)
I’ll place my money on conviction and a substantial sentence.
And Capone was convicted of tax evasion. So what? Holmes got 11.5 years. Does that seem like there was some undue interference on her behalf? Because I would be pretty disappointed if that's the best sentence I could get.
To be fair, it was a jury that decided that.
So when you learn about that, it's easier to think that the justice branch is much much closer to the executive branch than what it seems.
Indeed (to steal wording from the Wikipedia article) if I had been in charge in France and really thought this was happening I'd have taken some hostages of my own ! They would have been arrested on drugs and sex charges, I'd have had the security services fabricating lots of juicy stuff etc etc etc.
Justices are nominated by the president and confirmed by the senate.
If a judge is pleasing enough to the president (& senate), they can be appointed to the supreme court.
Certain individuals may be pursued more or less aggressively by the DOJ.
You got your Joe Arpaios who do their thing for years and years and declare that they won't co-operate with investigations, and wind up with a Trump pardon. And Jeffrey Epstein in the 2005-2008 years.
On the other hand you have your Snowdens, Assanges, Kim Dotcoms and Aaron Swartzes that the US will happily pursue indefinitely and across borders.
Although I also wouldn't throw a hissy fit until I got to bring my blackberry into scifs so that's neither here nor there.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painkiller_(TV_series)
It's pretty well known that if you're Steve Bannon or Scooter Libby or Paul Pogue you can get a pardon.
It's also pretty well known that if you're Brock Turner the judge can let you off with a slap on the wrist because he likes you.
I believe there have also been a number of cases in the US where cops have killed people in custody and gone unpunished for various reasons.
And there have been various controversies about, e.g. firing US attorneys who investigated one party's politicians and firing others for not investigating the other party's politicians.
And of course it's well known that the Supreme Court are political appointees with specific party loyalties.
With all that said it's very unlikely anyone's going to intervene in favour of Bankman-Fried - I'd wager he's too high-profile for an intervention to be swept under the rug, and and not enough of an insider for anyone to intervene anyway and take the heat.
His defense plan seems to be 'throw a mountain of shit at the jury, maybe some of it will confuse them enough.'
Doing what he's done means that there's nearly zero chance of leniency. I'd take even a small chance of leniency over a tiny chance of it.
It's also possible, as delusional as it would be, that he really thinks he's in the right here and is standing on principle. If that's the case, then he's doing what he should do.
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ftx-bankruptcy-tweet-sam-bankma...
[0] https://twitter.com/innercitypress