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Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

> and whatever happens, he's going to wind up in prison, and the threads here about his bail are in retrospect going to read a little silly.

I think you're missing the point.

The guy broke the law to the tune of BILLIONS of dollars, and he gets to sit around at home while waiting for trial. He is with his family, living however he wants. Eating great food, drinking, relaxing. Enjoying himself.

Regular criminals who break the law to the tune of hundreds of dollars are forced to sit in jail while they wait for trial. Jail sucks. You do NOT get to enjoy yourself.

That's the point.

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> The guy broke the law to the tune of BILLIONS of dollars, and he gets to sit around at home while waiting for trial. He is with his family, living however he wants. Eating great food, drinking, relaxing. Enjoying himself.

He hasn't been convicted of a crime. Why should he be in jail?

> Regular criminals who break the law to the tune of hundreds of dollars are forced to sit in jail while they wait for trial. Jail sucks. You do NOT get to enjoy yourself.

It sounds like you support bail reform then, which has been a big thing recently in California and New York!

> That's the point.

The point absolutely is NOT to imprison people who have not been convicted of a crime. The point is to imprison people who have been convicted of a crime, and then maybe also temporarily imprison people pre-trial if they pose an imminent threat to the community (which SBF does not).

>He hasn't been convicted of a crime. Why should he be in jail?

He should be in jail because he very likely has the hidden resources to flee and escape prosecution if he so chooses.

> He should be in jail because he very likely has the hidden resources to flee and escape prosecution if he so chooses.

You mean, you think he’s risk tolerant enough that it is likely he will reveal his hidden assets if he is released on bail under strict supervision?

“He hasn't been convicted of a crime. Why should he be in jail?”

because he’s connected enough to avoid getting jailed again even if he gets convicted

I doubt that he will get off, but it seems dubious to put people in jail pre-trial on the basis that they would get away without jail time post-trial.

Just like he was connected enough to avoid ever getting investigated or charged, right?

The "nothing bad will happen to SBF because he's connected" narrative has already been shown to be false, find some new material.

He hasn't been convicted. When he is, my guess is he spends essentially the rest of his life in prison. I don't much care what he's doing right now. It's unfair that people poorer than him spend the same time in lockup. But the bail system's treatment of SBF is so far from the top of my list of things to be concerned about, my first approximation of it is that it simply doesn't matter. You can feel differently!

The rest of his life in prison? You'll be sorely wrong by a long shot. Have you looked at any precedents? Jeff Skilling, for one, is already out. More recently, Elizabeth Holmes only received 11 years.

SBF will do more time than Holmes. Perhaps I'm underestimating just how young a goober he is; I don't think he'll get actual life, and 20 years for SBF gets him out when he's 45, which, oh shit, that's roughly how old I am. So: fair enough. He'll be in federal prison for a long time. That's what I meant to convey.

> Perhaps I'm underestimating just how young a goober he is

Overestimating I think - he's 30 according to wikipedia, so 20 years is 50, unless you're taking into account some early release or parole program.

Weirdly she's free until she has to turn herself in on April 23rd 2023. Somehow I figured when you got sentenced, to prison, you got taken away to prison. I guess when you are rich, you get some time to do some last things before you go away?

It's not just rich people. Self-surrender/voluntary surrender is a reasonable thing for the courts to allow if they think you will show up. You can terminate your lease, store or sell your belongings, make arrangements for who takes your dog, marry (or not) your fiance etc. Better for avoiding recidivism if you can come back to things in stasis as opposed to restarting with nothing. The typical timeframe is around 2 weeks, but appeals might lengthen it.

I think it's fairly standard if you were released on bail prior to sentencing, but I don't have the statistics

She got pregnant to delay her prison time. There's also precedent for delaying reporting to prison for things like going to your child's graduation or something. I guess if a person is not a flight risk before sentencing then they're not treated as a risk after sentencing either.

If they aren't flight risk Before sentencing, and are still not also a flight risk After sentencing, why aren't they simply put under house arrest? Why should society pay to house, feed, cloth, guard, and medically maintain, and entertain them?

according to the state of California it cost them over $106 thousand per inmate per year. Surely at that price letting them take care of themselves is better for any nonviolent crime, or any crime where the odds of recidivism during their sentence while under house arrest is sufficiently low?

House arrest is completely diff. experience, seems like barely a punishment

as those given house arrest have lower recidivism rates than those that go to prison I can accept a more lenient punishment that is more effective in preventing further crime. those under house arrest don't have their lives destroyed as totally as those going to prison so after their punishment are more able to reintegrate into society. for example many sentenced to house arrest with electronic monitoring are allowed to continue working while under house arrest, as they are never quit working they don't have to face the stigma against employing felons that prevent many ex-convicts from finding new employment after release and they aren't then driven to further crimes simply to make ends meet.

Well she'll be 49 when she gets out might as well have that 2nd kid. Was too busy being a power fraudster till the collapse to have a kid I guess.

Holmes is released until her appeal. https://news.yahoo.com/heres-how-elizabeth-holmes-may-try-to...

She is ~6 months pregnant and the judge allowed her to give birth out of prison before serving her time, jesus christ. This is a humane accommodation for a pregnant woman; she still has to serve her time after birth.

As seen in 25th Hour (2002).

Btw legendary monologue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgL_5QcZCMo

The better precedent would be Madoff.

You are right. The amounts lost in FTX are also around the ballpark of Madoff's amounts, after inflation.

Madoff was sentenced when he was 71, so I doubt they spent much time considering the difference between 20 years and life.

Madoff was sentenced to 150 years, and even though he pled guilty, sentencing still took about 3 months. A lot of thought and legal process went into it.

Those "regular criminals" who sit in jail awaiting trial are often not charged with Federal offenses. They are subject to a different court and jail system which has a different set of rules about bail.

Also, you seem pretty eager to make people suffer in jail even though they have not been convicted of a crime. Just because it sometimes happens doesn't justify it happening to everyone.

They also often appear more likely to pose a threat to the public. How is a white collar criminal a threat to the public?

FWIW "regular criminals" routinely get bail. Even murder suspects do; around half of them. Despite that, there are some obvious issues with cash bail, which is why bail reform is a major area of legislation in some places. Several states have recently switched from cash bail to a points system.

That points system seems like an infinitely better idea than advocating that shitty conditions and mistreatment be applied evenly across all people. Presumption of innocence, right? No matter what we all think, SBF has not been proven -- in the way that matters -- to have broken the law.

> He is with his family, living however he wants. Eating great food, drinking, relaxing. Enjoying himself.

i don’t feel a particular need to start paying to house him any sooner than necessary.

we’re all going to be stuck with that bill for most of the rest of his life.

There are plenty of criminals out on bail right now. And plenty of them will get arrested again commiting yet another crime while on bail.

So? That's how it should be if it's deemed by a judge that you're not likely to flee. You have a presumption of innocence and should not be detained if it can be helped.

He already fled once to the Bahamas.

FTX was incorporated in the Bahamas, and he was living there long before this all went down. If anything, many people including myself were surprised that he did not flee the Bahamas (which is quite cozy with the US) to a less extradition-friendly locale the moment the shit hit the fan.

wasn’t he already living in the bahamas? kind of a stretch to say he fled there.

You can't expect them to actually read news articles while they're sharpening their pitchforks. They've only got two hands.

What did his bail terms say? If they said stay in the county, for example, then he fled regardless of where his home was. If you breach bail terms (without good reason, eg preventing a death) you should never get out on bail again.

He was in the Bahamas for a few years before any of this went down. He probably took trips to the US (and Hong Kong and other places) for various reasons, but his main residency was the Bahamas.

wut?

he was arrested in the bahamas, the bail terms came AFTER the arrest. How the hell does someone breach bail terms before they're arrested?

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