Silicon Valley Bank vice president sentenced to 15 months in prison | Hacker News Reader

Silicon Valley Bank vice president sentenced to 15 months in prison

kron4.com

83 pointsAndrewKemendo16 comments

This is old news from Feb 6 2023, well before the collapse of SVB. While it could potentially reflect on the company culture and be relevant to SVB's recent troubles, it's not at all clear why KRON4 decided to present this as breaking news.

Primary source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/former-bank-vice-presid...

I wonder how much profit the VP made during his tenure and as part of the insider trading. It seems like the cost of that benefit is $11,300 ($10K fine + $1.3K special assessment) and 15 months in prison which I assume will be a "nicer" prison.

White collar crime seems to pay well, and the consequences don't seem too harsh.

Edit: the $11.3K and 15 months is for falsifying documents. I don't know if he had a separate fine for the insider trading.

https://www.bfhelaw.com/blog/2021/03/surprising-facts-about-...

There is no such thing as an ‘easy’ prison

It really grinds my gears people perpetuate this. Federal prison is federal prison.

The reference you provided looks like generic SEO content...not really something to build your case with...

Federal prison is still held to much higher standards when compared to county jails, especially those run by for profit corporations.

>There is no such thing as an ‘easy’ prison

According to a law firm's blog/advertisement. It may be true, but they are trying to get you to hire them to keep you out of prison.

You aren't tortured or starved. You aren't physically or psychologically abused. The food is hot and you are fed enough calories to not be hungry. You are given jobs to keep your mind busy, can shower, groom, and buy goodies with your work earnings.

If I had like 50 million stashed away and had to live like this for about 2 years in prison, then I could get out and enjoy my millions, sounds good to me... sign me up. White collar criminal judgments for corporations, high rolling individuals and politicians is a joke compared to the average joe.

If your gig is to run parts of the 3rd central bank of USA, you can literally trade millions pre-market just before big bailouts by the Federal Reserve.

Where are the handcuffs? Nothing to see, everyone move on.

"Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan and Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren during 2020. As the heads of two of the Fed's network of 12 reserve banks, both were instrumental in engineering the Fed’s response to the financial fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic."

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/a-timeline-of-the-federal-res...

I didn't mention that it was 'easy', only 'nicer'. I wasn't clear that I was comparing it to a what a state prison would be. I also didn't mean to insinuate that prison is easy or nice, only that my belief is that white-collar crimes (especially ones were lots of money is involved) tend to get the guilty party into a federal prison that will treat them better. Of course, this is all relative. I'd rather not go to any prison, however if there was a choice or ability to influence the decision, I'd prefer a "nicer" federal prison, especially one of the ones listed as the best prisons to go to.

I do believe a lot of people would trade a federal prison sentence if they were able to steal millions and were able to get it afterwards. Of course, the prison sentence to how much money was made will vary per individual.

Some quick links from google on the best federal prisons where it mentions there are "nicer" federal prisons.

[1] https://federalcriminaldefenseattorney.com/best-federal-pris... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2012/01/19/The-Best-Places-to-Go-to-Pri... [3] https://www.forbes.com/2009/07/13/best-prisons-cushiest-mado...

The insider trading charges were only for $11,000 of profit for the SVB VP. SEC charges are below.

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2021-117

Thank you for the link. That helps answer my question and 11K doesn't seem worth the risk. I was honestly expecting a much larger profit than that. His friend made ~$40K in gains. Both had to pay fines which is good.

Woefully lacking on details. The immediate question is whether this falsification has anything to do with the SVB collapse or if it was just an isolated attempt at profiteering.

Agree regarding the details - I'm guessing unrelated given the indictment was over a year before the collapse "On Jan. 13, 2022, a federal grand jury indicted Gad"

"On Jan. 13, 2022, a federal grand jury indicted Gad, charging him with three counts of tampering with documents, three counts of tampering, six counts of identity theft and one count of criminal contempt, according to the United States Attorney’s Office. The 36-year-old pleaded guilty to all charges without a plea agreement."

The SVB bank collapse was in March 2023 -- over a year later -- so this would be a completely unrelated matter.

The falsified documents have nothing to do with SVB or the insider training. They were character letters to try to reduce his sentence on the insider trading charges. Frankly, the submitted article is misleading.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/former-bank-vice-presid...

The justice.gov article has more insights than the news article. From what I can tell, he initially got off on probation for insider trading instead of prison due to 12 letters of references vouching for his character, and he altered/falsified 6 of them. Seems like isolated attempt at profiteering, but I also wonder if this helped contribute to the collapse as well.

[1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/former-bank-vice-presid....

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