In under five hours! The jury was home in time for dinner.
One question for legal people—why is there such a long gap between conviction and sentencing? In this case, the sentence won't be set until March of next year.
One question for legal people—why is there such a long gap between conviction and sentencing? In this case, the sentence won't be set until March of next year.
The guidelines calculations, contrary to public belief, are pretty easy! You will have a pretty good success rate just carefully reading the charged statutes in the indictment and then following the instructions in the guidelines. But the PSR, prosecution, and defense filings all take a bunch of time, and involve "reporting" or "research" or whatever you'd want to call it.
That process ostensibly can't even start until everyone knows what the precise convictions were.
For what it's worth, I think there's a very good chance he just gets the statutory maximum penalties here, because the dollar loss and victim count numbers max out the 2B1.1 guidelines (which, for instance, cap out at $10MM in dollar losses). Attributing specific dollar losses and victim counts is ostensibly one of the things that makes sentencing take so long, but as long as it takes I think the outcome is a foregone conclusion.
† Later: they're definitely not public; there's a whole victims rights thing about getting victims partial access to PSRs so they can be heard in the sentencing process. I guess I can stop looking for them.
But the number of victims and the hardship element probably means he's looking at life.
* 7 as the 2b1.1 baseline
* +30 for dollar loss, which caps out at $550MM, against CFTC's estimate of $8Bn
* +6 for 25+ victims, another cap
* +2 for financial misrepresentations, maybe, depending on how bankruptcy fits in
* +2 for either sophisticated means or deliberate use of foreign jurisdictions (the same clause, one of those predicates is definitely going to hit)
* +4 for jeopardizing (or, in this case, destroying) a financial institution --- at a minimum, +2 (same clause) for >$1MM gross receipts
* +4 for his function as the leader in the crime
* +2 for obstruction, maybe
* +1-2 for grouping/combined offense level, depending on how the conspiracy, wire fraud, and campaign finance stuff groups out.
So that's low-to-high 50s as an offense level. 43 is straight life. But there's probably a statutory maximum in the mix here that takes life off the table somehow.
Later: I miskeyed the 2B1.1b1 cap, as 10MM (the bottom of the page); it's 550MM (on the next page). Doesn't change the analysis much, which is why SBF is so fucked.
If you do it in the order in the guidelines manual, the dollar loss is the first figure after the base offense for the offenses to which it applies, so (with a base of 7 for the wire fraud charge), you'd get to 37 with it alone. But if the tool does it in a different order, putting some of the other factors first, or you work a different charge first and its applying the grouping rules as you go, it would be very easy to hit 43 for SBF at the +30 for the dollar loss, and so get pegged to "life".
The actual aggregate statutory maximum for the offenses he's been convicted of (115 years) will limit the actual sentence though.
I share your expectation that it'll turn out there's a statutory maximum somewhere, but the math seems the check out.
Follow up - is there any kind of correlation in the gap length, between sentencing and PSR ?
I could see a situation where the gap is longer than a sentence, and that would be pretty sad for the prosecuted...
But his sentence is going to be so long that there isn't going to be any injustice at play for him to be in confinement for a few months while they work the numbers out. He's not getting out in a year or two.
I doubt he'll get out before sentencing, he's looking at up to life in prison so in addition to having a demonstrated history of ignoring his release conditions he'll also be a huge flight risk.
It is not often that I get to say this lately, but the jury restored some of my tired faith in the system in US.
I believe that's what you're supposed to do, as implied by "beyond a reasonable doubt" -- so good job!
I was on the jury of a federal fraud trial with 2 defendants with 15 charges, ~30 million in losses.
We were thorough and went through each count separately, including reviewing some of the evidence, and were done in maybe 8 hours spread across 2 days.
We ended up with a mixed verdict: one count not guilty for both, another not guilty for one. I fully believe they were aware and committed fraud for the not guilty counts, but the prosecutor wasn’t able to cross the “reasonable doubt” threshold in our minds for those specific instances.
Only thing we weren’t super careful about was the first requirement for Mail/Wire fraud, which is “Mail and wires” were used.
It was amusing that the prosecutors brought in a bank IT guy to explain that “the internet uses wires”, but not really something we questioned.
I wonder if they did that to avoid having to explain to the jury that wire fraud does not actually require the use of wires...
And are modern fiber optic cables wires in any sense of the word? Does the relevant statute in USC18 actually define "wire" for the purpose of the crime?
Part of me thinks that wireless communications must be included, but one might make the case that even then, information/communication is transmitted over wire at some point.
"having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice"
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1343
UPDATE: Various court decisions have expanded the interpretation so that "wire fraud" also involves the use of the internet, phone calls, emails, social media messages, faxes, telegrams, fiber optic, cable or SMS messaging and data systems.
I am not a lawyer, though. I could be mistaken on this.
‘That is correct.’
At the end of the day he deserves everything he's getting
So yeah. I'm pretty sure he's getting the slammer while waiting for sentencing.
He's been convicted, he's gonna stay in jail.
It sounds like its plausible, but i'd like to know for a fact
> There's no realistic grounds for appeal
They are required to stay out of custody while that appeal is pending, though.
I don't know how that would play out, but he isn't exactly looking good, character-wise.
To me, probably. He exhibits much of the same traits as Elizabeth Holmes in terms of perspective on his own intelligence and entitlement.
She surrendered her passport, without mentioning she had or had access to another one, and was caught planning to leave for Mexico with a one way ticket and no accommodation booked, and then tried to claim it was "for a friend's destination wedding" (which shouldn't even have mattered - the surrender of the passport meant she was forbidden from leaving the country, regardless the reason).
How the hell people this dumb become CEOs.
First thing we all agreed we would not be coming back on Monday…
But, frankly, if I were on trial by a jury of my peers, I’d appreciate it if people took their time.
It also turned out that we were all mostly on the same page.
Criminal stuff i certainly would have not agreed.
The high-profile cases like SBF's are a tiny fraction of jury trials in the US, most trials have no significant risk of jury tampering and the jury is not sequestered, meaning that if we had needed more time for deliberation, we would have just gone home for the evening and shown up at the courthouse the next day. We did have our phones collected at the start of the day and returned at the end, which seemed like a reasonable precaution against both "independent research" and distractions/interruptions, and would have also made jury tampering somewhat more difficult if anyone was so inclined.
The lunches were sandwiches from the vending machine. Two choice ham and without meat. They were good I can taste the salt on the ham as I write this.
The conversations within the jury are like tv. Immediately you have a few who think anyone on trial is guilty. You have a smaller group who want to find reasons they may not. At some point someone will accuse that group of being part of the criminal conspiracy. Friends and enemies are formed. Promises and deals were made but all disappears after the verdict (someone offered me a job and ghosted later).
Protections? I had a job offer to start that week that I lost because I couldn't start. No police protections.
The actual trial is very boring. Police reading notes. Long winded questions without any tv drama.
Worthwhile as an experience.
In our case if you reached a verdict you were done serving so no need to drag it out.
Kind of scary that this is the rigor our justice system hinges on.
It was also a pretty one sided case.
That’s not the scary part. The scary and eye opening part is that an obviously frivolous lawsuit against can bankrupt you.
There is a YouTuber with h3h3 productions and he got hit with a lawsuit and it cost them USD 50k + USD 170k, at least. Maybe chump change if you’re a billionaire but I’d lose by default if you were to sue me.
He could have chartered a boat to Venezuela and taken a few hundred million with him.
Of course, all the people he defrauded might follow him.
Given how harsh the US is on financial crimes, I always thought the former opinion was smarter. Nick Leeson only got sentenced to 6 1/2 years in Singapore (and served 4). Or, alternatively, most stats show higher levels of corruption he could've finessed in his favor in the Bahamas.
As soon as he arrived on US soil it was over for him IMO.
The fact that he did this instead of executing a planned escape and going to hangout with Ruja Ignatova is the main reason for me to think he believed his own shit.
Leaked his ex-gf's private diaries in an attempt to intimidate her.
Decided to testify at his own trial.
I'm almost certain that he thought he would give a grand speech and all the jurors would instantly take his side, just like he had experienced with VCs, journalists, employees and other sycophants for the past decade.
Is there not a house next to Edward Snowden?
Why stay?
Extradition treaty mainly just lets some foreign country start a process in local courts to hand someone over.
You need to butter up a place with adversarial relations.
Or go somewhere with ironclad constitutional protections against extradition. And even then, e.g. France only has those for its own citizens and may still prosecute you locally for your crimes abroad.
Its a big world out there and a shockingly large portion is free of recognized government control. In such places you pretty much live by your own bootstraps rather than what some far away western country says, at least on the individual level.
What really really shocks me though is that SBF didn't just jump on a yacht out right after the failure as he easily could have done. If he had sailed to the right part of Latam or West Africa he'd have a decent chance at not getting caught.