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Comment by Octokiddie | Hacker News Reader

This article has some context, including this part about possible penalties if found guilty:

> Legal experts told CNBC that if the federal government pursues wire or bank fraud charges, Bankman-Fried could face life in prison without the possibility of supervised release. Such a severe punishment would be unusual but not extraordinary. Ponzi scheme mastermind Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison, an effective life sentence, for his massive ponzi scheme. ...

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/12/ftx-founder-sam-bankman-frie...

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Madoff got a long sentence, but lets not forget that 'legal experts' were predicting a pretty long sentence for Elizabeth Holmes, too, based on federal formulas. It's optimistic at this early stage to legitimately expect SBF to get life behind bars.

Holmes got 11 years in Federal prison for her first offense for financial crimes.. that is a long sentence. SBF obviously won’t get life behind bars, nor should he.

Yes 11 years is a long time to be imprisoned however I think it was in the low end of what she could have gotten which is why people say she didn't get a long sentence.

It wasn’t at the low end whatsoever, it was perfectly in line with the sentencing guidelines for the charges she was accused and convicted of.

Federal sentencing is actually really easy to predict. You can almost always ignore the proclamations of “could be 130 years” since those are often only for serious repeat offenders and tons of sentencing enhancements.

Skip down to the process part of this post:

https://prisonprofessors.com/calculating-holmes-prison-sente...

Once we know what SBF is going to be charged with, we’ll know what his eventual sentencing range will be if he’s convicted. For all of the conspiracy theorizing and dramatics, it boils down to a very boring sentencing chart.

No it wasn’t. It was basically right in the middle. The prosecutors, who typically ask for something a wide margin higher than realistic asked for 15. Remember this is a federal sentence, so no parole.

I haven't done any research lately, but the original "she will get what amounts to a life sentence" was predicated on her being found guilty on all charges, it did not assume any kind of consecutive sentence stacking that you see in newspaper articles. It was a legitimate analysis. I assume (as I said, I have not gone back to do the comparison) that she did not get convicted on all charges they started out with, hence the discrepancy.

> SBF obviously won’t get life behind bars, nor should he.

Is it really that obvious? I know the Federal Sentencing Guidelines have some wiggle room and gray areas, but I do know for financial crimes the length of sentence is largely proportional to the amount of money involved - not linearly proportional, mind you, but given that around 8 billion was stolen, definitely seems like life is on the table.

That said, I agree with your "nor should he" statement. The money is gone, and SBF rotting in jail for the rest of his life isn't going to bring it back. I do think he deserves to spend a long, long time in jail, but will it really have any more significant deterrent effect if he gets out at, say, age 65 vs. dying in jail?

We'll know for sure when the charges are unsealed tomorrow, but for now, it's likely he's only been charged with a few counts of wire fraud and money laundering. Bank fraud has a max sentence of 30 years, wire fraud 20 years, and like Holmes found out (fortunately for her) - the amount isn't the total amount that was lost, but the smaller amount implicated directly in the fraud charges.

If you squint, you can maybe get to 37-40 points if they do get him for over $1 billion -- which is a serious sentence! But more on the order of 19-24 years.

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