Caroline Ellison sentenced to 2 years in prison | Hacker News Reader

Caroline Ellison sentenced to 2 years in prison

nytimes.com

181 pointsgniting239 comments

I see a lot of anger in the form of "she should get 10 years, it's the right thing to do". I wonder if that's precisely the sentiment that has been part of the reason the USA has become the country with the highest % of incarcerated people. I'm not an American, so I'm wondering if there's a cultural difference here that explains the different feelings / viewpoints.

2 years + owing money to the feds + not being able to get a job: this person will suffer the consequences for her action for the rest of her life. Whether it's fair or not (I'll get to that point later), it's a huge deterrence for commiting crimes, particularly for white collar crimes like this.

Regarding the fairness of the punishment: I have zero feelings about this. The punishments should be chosen to make society work: deter future crimes, keep people that are harmful and hopefully help them change course. In this case, there's also providing incentives to cooperate.

I don't need people to suffer for stuff. If it's needed somehow for society to work, them great, but I don't feel (as many in this thread seem to feel) that long periods of suffering is needed for some reason (to appease their sense of justice? God? The victims? All of the above?). And let's be clear: the suffering in higher levels of security prison in the USA is on a whole different scale.

> particularly for white collar crimes like this

This is why it's a hard pill to swallow. In the worst case, unprecedented matter, this white-collar crime gets 2 years.

People, particularly poor and often black Americans, have gotten 20+ years for possession.

It stings. We're trying to go back and remedy some of those absurd punishments but still, there is a stark and obvious unfairness here. And that sucks. All we can hope is that, going forward, we treat our more vulnerable groups with more dignity. But I agree, she shouldn't face harsher punishment.

> particularly poor and often black Americans, have gotten 20+ years for possession.

Just wanted to point out how insincere/misleading of a statement that is. People in those "locked up for 20 years for drugs" circumstances universally all have decade long felonious records, have committed umpteen crimes, time after time after time, are on probation with strict requirements to not be involved in illegal activities, get yet another drug charge, and are finally given a harsh sentence after being given light sentences the last dozen times in a row.

You present it as "this normal, law abiding citizen, was caught with some drugs and just thrown in jail for 20 years". Which is demonstrably not the case and is intentionally leaving out all the other details, which is really manipulative.

You also leave out that the vast, vast, majority of that group that are caught with drugs are NOT thrown in jail for 20 years.

> universally all have decade long felonious records

Not true at all, it depends on the state. In the south with a history of unfair justice for black Americans and "tough on crime" standards, you have two strike or three strike systems. And not just for felonies! And this doesn't even touch on perpetual imprisonment laws, which have a long history dating back to Jim Crow post-reconstruction south.

> are NOT thrown in jail for 20 years

The best way to not be thrown in jail for drug charges is to be white, lol. These laws are thinly veiled discrimination machines. It's not a coincidence that the drugs with the most iron hammer happen to be the drugs black Americans frequent.

Again, this is changing now. We don't do this anymore. But go back to the 80s, the 90s, the early 2000s and this was very prolific, particularly in the south.

> People in those "locked up for 20 years for drugs" circumstances universally all have decade long felonious records, have committed umpteen crimes, time after time after time, are on probation with strict requirements to not be involved in illegal activities, get yet another drug charge, and are finally given a harsh sentence after being given light sentences the last dozen times in a row.

That's... not accurate. Yes, there are those people.

And then there's Florida, and its two strike law. Which within hours of being enacted, caused a woman who was arrested for stealing a package of undershirts from Walmart to 15 years in prison - she had a couple of misdemeanor arrests prior.

But if stealing underwear (and Walmart underwear, not La Perla) twice can get you 15 years jail, that's a long way from your "they all have decades of felonies, all have violated probation" absolutism.

Another example was someone who was arrested for LSD possession after a Grateful Dead concert, released. Was arrested 3 years later for marijuana possession, put on probation. Several years later arrested for LSD possession, and federally sentenced to life in prison without parole at the age of 24, only being released after President Obama granted clemency just before his 50th birthday.

> This is why it's a hard pill to swallow. In the worst case, unprecedented matter, this white-collar crime gets 2 years.

> People, particularly poor and often black Americans, have gotten 20+ years for possession.

But why does Ellison need to get extra time because poor/black Americans have been treated unfairly? Fix the injustice at the root rather than "fixing" it by treating everybody equally unfairly.

I never said she did, I said that's why this is a hard pill to swallow. Unfairness sucks, and it's unreasonable to expect people to not get upset at unfairness. Obviously, the fix needs to come from the other direction.

I wonder if that's precisely the sentiment that has been part of the reason the USA has become the country with the highest % of incarcerated people.

You wonder? You could have done a little research and found that prisons in the US aren't filled with people that stole 11 billion dollars and got more than 2 years in prison.

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2024.html

This site has useful graphs but I don't see a category for stealing 11 billion dollars.

Yes, a very large number of people are in prisons for stealing far far far less money. But the motivation of seeing punishment as itself a good thing rather than a thing that achieves a downstream outcome overlaps.

There are other reasons for mass incarceration in the US too (perpetuation of racial hierarchies is a big one), but "people who do bad things should just be crushed" is a key element.

Yes, a very large number of people are in prisons for stealing far far far less money.

Most people are in prison for violent crimes, then some for drugs, then theft.

But the motivation of seeing punishment as itself a good thing rather than a thing that achieves a downstream outcome overlaps.

I don't know what exactly you mean by this, but maybe we should be an evolved and caring society and let everyone out of jail and prison because punishment is cruel.

but "people who do bad things should just be crushed" is a key element.

Let's be clear that someone who stole 11 billion dollars going away for 2 years is not "being crushed".

Almost anyone on the planet would go to prison for 2 years just to be able to invest 11 billion for a few years and give back the principle. At only 4%, that's 440 million dollars a year or $1.2 million a day.

White collar criminals with magnitude more body bags are not getting long periods of suffering that poorly resourced petty criminals are. I think society would work better if they, specifically got more relative to other groups, including some violent criminals.

SBF is going to get the shaft, just like many other prominent white collar criminals, like Bernie Madoff, have. The reason Ellison is getting off lightly is because she made a deal with prosecutors and gave them all they needed to build a strong case. Same happens when people in a non-white-collar criminal organisation snitch, they tend to get decent deals. The reason a low level drug dealer doesn't get that is because he has no information of value to the prosecution that he can use as leverage.

Someone is suffering more than someone else and the solution is for everyone to suffer as badly? This sounds like the worst kind of race to the bottom.

I'm also worried about what it does to those who need to do the actual work to make people suffer. It must be poison for your soul to work on making others suffer. A downward spiral.

>solution is for everyone to suffer as badly

I think one expedient solution to changing the game is for the priveleged to suffer equally as the under priveleged, not just because that's fair / justice, but because they're in a better position to realize the the current race sucks when it's not rigged/biased. They should also suffer proportional to social harm done, a white collar criminal who hurts 1000s a little should get as much time as a criminal who hurts 1 a lot. There's already plenty people whose job it is to make others suffer, TBH, knowing some who works in corrections, enough psychopaths that it makes no difference if the people they oversee gets more "diverse". And if we really want their jobs to be more humane, then maybe putting priveleged in positions where they have to improve system for everyone, if only out of sheer self interest, is how to get that done.

The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way

I find my fellow Americans generally lack empathy, and hypocrisy runs rampant. People are very harsh and critical until they’re in the same boat.

> I wonder if that's precisely the sentiment that has been part of the reason the USA has become the country with the highest % of incarcerated people.

No. We don't have hundreds of thousands of billion-size crypto fraudsters. We do have a lot of drug users and small-time drug dealers that are in prison for drug offenses, for example. Or a lot of mentally ill people who are in prison... well, because there's no other place to put them in, really.

I am not here to argue about if US should incarcerate more or less, but certainly having a billion-dollar crypto fraudster sit in prison more than 2 years would hardly make a change in that situation. It's an exceptional crime, and people expect exceptional punishment for it. Either way, it won't make difference for hundreds of thousands of people in jail for unexceptional offenses.

That’s because 30% of the U.S. is sadists who want to see people suffer. Be thankful you live in Europe!

Regardless of the sentence, there's only one federal prison for women above low security so she's probably going to end up somewhere cushy with no fences and work release.

SBF on the other hand... https://old.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/1av88z5/fir...

I don't think the Feds do work release, they have their own industries that you can slave away at for $0.17/hr. But you are right she will go to a camp since she is non-violent and only has 2 years. It's a points system and assuming she hasn't committed any crimes prior then her points will be low enough to go to a camp.

What's a "camp"? Is it not a prison? Non-US person here.

The sibling comments are incorrect, the minimum security prisons are called 'Federal Prison Camps", the colloquial name is 'Club Fed'. There aren't a ton of these facilities, so I can see why other people thought that the camp phrasing wasn't literal. Think military camp rather than summer camp.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_federal_...

Looks like Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos is also in this sort of camp in Bryan, Texas. Minimum-security of course.

Federal minimum security prisons don't have fences surrounding the prison so the only thing keeping prisoners from "escaping" is the extra five years that'd be added to their sentence. They have far fewer guards and the prisoners live in dormitory style quarters so it's far more like adult summer camp than prison (commonly referred to as "Club Fed"). Instead of having services on site they'll often drive the prisoners to a local dentist or doctor, etc.

As they get closer to release or if their sentences are short enough, prisoners can even get work release which allows them to leave the prison during the day to work at a regular job. (I think the GP is confusing work release and parole - the Federal system does have work release)

If you're in Western Europe a minimum security federal facility is probably closer to your understanding of a prison than an American's understanding. Hence Americans describe it as a camp, whereas if you looked at it you might say hey, that's a prison.

It's a prison but it's generally much more open. Prisoners sleep in open air dorms, there are minimal to no fences, there are generally good education and recreation programs and vast majority of people are white collar criminals, the violence is much much lower.

It probably doesn't apply as much to white collar criminals but I wonder if she would be considered a snitch by her fellow inmates.

The no snitching rule applies mostly to someone who is already in prison and consequences depend on the security level. No one’s going to kill a snitch in minimum security, worst case scenario is that they’ll be outcasts and get into a fight occasionally.

The majority of prisoners are in prison because of a plea deal, not a jury verdict, so they often have to snitch on their accomplices as part of the plea deal (with severe consequences for lying and omissions). In practice the traditional prisoner’s dilemma usually plays out with everyone snitching on each other and everyone getting a deal because the prosecutor doesn’t want to waste time and money on a trial.

> In practice the traditional prisoner’s dilemma usually plays out with everyone snitching on each other and everyone getting a deal because the prosecutor doesn’t want to waste time and money on a trial.

This seems unlikely. Any prosecutor running for re-election wants to score. At least one big fish.

Over 95% of criminal cases end in a plea bargain. Trials are rare and unpredictable. The last thing prosecutors want is their career derailed by a fickle jury and the vast majority of crimes don’t involve a “big fish” worth the risk.

This and other phenomena make it sound like the "justice" system is fertile ground game theory.

Game theory is full of spherical cows like the assumption that the state has infinite resources to prosecute. Reality is a bit different.

It's a prison, just what you might call a "minimum security prison." Like, you might take out the garbage outside the prison with no supervision.

I believe it’s being used as a colloquial play on “summer camp” to describe the prison as not that bad.

This is actually a term used by the BOP to describe minimum security institutions:

"Minimum security institutions, also known as Federal Prison Camps (FPCs), have dormitory housing, a relatively low staff-to-inmate ratio, and limited or no perimeter fencing. These institutions are work- and program-oriented."

https://www.bop.gov/about/facilities/federal_prisons.jsp

Huh the more you know. Maybe it’s just me but as a technical term it makes them sound worse. My mind goes to POW camps, internment camps, death camps…

Do prisoners have to work?

In almost every case the prisoner is doing it voluntarily.

There are actually fewer prison jobs than prisoners willing to work. So in nearly every case being able to have a job while in prison is actually a privilege for the prisoners. One that can be taken away if they get in trouble.

There's a lot of reform we should make with relation to prison jobs including raising wages and introducing relevant skills.

But criticisms of it being slave labor are misleading.

Forced labor is legal in the US and there are isolated cases of it happening but you're talking about a fraction of a percent of all prisoners.

> But criticisms of it being slave labor are misleading

It depends. In Georgia on work release, for instance, it pretty much is slavery. You're forced into a minimum number of hours and get less than minimum wage.

You're forced to take a job - not having one isn't an option. Because you have close to 0 chance of getting parole without a job. And when you sentence people 20+ years for possession and such, you need parole. Not to mention there's also indefinite imprisonment - meaning you're locked away until you get parole.

These prisoners don't work in the prison, they typically work in food establishments like McDonald's. Even with the privilege and getting a job and having good behavior, parole is shockingly low - just 8% for nonviolent offenders. So the prisoners are trapped, coerced to work for many years to prove themselves and hope for a chance to get parole. All while they're making a couple dollars an hour, maybe, and the prison keeps half their wages.

Failure to work or problems at work result in the loss of "good time". No phone calls, no visits.

In the United States prison inmates are still slave labor, courtesy of the 14th amendment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...

https://www.npr.org/2023/12/14/1219187249/prisoners-are-suin...

> Ms. Ellison is set to report to a minimum security prison in the Boston area by around Nov. 7, almost exactly two years after FTX collapsed.

So it's Danbury, CT.

I used to drive by this prison- for years I thought it was a country club until I asked my dad about the sign that said "Do not pick up hitchhikers" which seemed odd for a golf course.

Danbury is only "in the Boston area" by the most generous of measures. Hell, Danbury's probably closer to Philadelphia than Boston.

>Danbury is only "in the Boston area" by the most generous of measures. Hell, Danbury's probably closer to Philadelphia than Boston.

Perhaps by a small margin, but I don't think so.

That said, Danbury is ~150 miles from Boston and ~70 miles from New York City. And even less from New Haven or Hartford.

SBF on the other hand...is cell mates with Puff Daddy.

That photo hit me hard. I'd have so many regrets.

I follow a bunch of longtime lawyers who have a lot to say about how prosecutions work in practice and it's pretty interesting. Here's what I've learned:

1. The Federal conviction rate is ~99%. Federal prosecutors don't bring charges when they aren't going to win;

2. Most prosecutions end in plea deals before they get to trial. In fact, the threat of a heavy sentence at trial is used to extract a plea deal because trials are expensive. If every defendant went to trial the entire justice system would collapse;

4. You can never predict what a jury will do or what they will focus on. It's a huge gamble but it favors the prosecution. Juries want to convict, generally;

5. In Federal court, you want to get past the trial phase and into the sentencing phase. That's where the defendant can do a lot to get a lesser sentence. In state court, it's the opposite;

6. Judges and prosecturos are aligned on their goals. Not for prosecution, necessarily. Both don't want to be overturned on appeal;

7. Appeals are a deeply unfair and drawn out process. This can be abused. If you followed the YSL trial at all, you saw the judge essentially coerce testimony and refuse to disclose the details to the defense saying there was a record that would be preserved for an appeal. That judge ultimately got removed from the case but you should know that an appeal is a much higher burden to meet than anything at trial;

8. Prosecutors want a slam dunk case. The best way is to a cooperating witness. The first person to flip, gets the best deal.

So Ellison got a sweetheart deal because she immediately flipped besides arguably being the main person responsible for losing billions of dollars. Yes, SBF allowed her access to custodial funds and for that alone he deserves to go to prison.

Judges have a lot of discretion with sentencing despite their being sentencing guidelines. It's one area where a judge's biases can really show up when similar defendants can get wildly different sentences for the same crime.

2 years does seem pretty light given the gravity of the fraud, even with being a cooperating witness. Her lawyer is alrgely responsible for that, I would guess by gaming the sentencing process. Still, I imagine there was some belief that she was simply naive or she got caught up in the fraud and wasn't really responsible.

> 2. Most prosecutions end in plea deals before they get to trial. In fact, the threat of a heavy sentence at trial is used to extract a plea deal because trials are expensive. If every defendant went to trial the entire justice system would collapse;

> 4. You can never predict what a jury will do or what they will focus on. It's a huge gamble but it favors the prosecution. Juries want to convict, generally;

And those are pretty terrible and make for an unfair system. How many people took a plea deal to avoid the risk of getting a heavy sentence by gambling with a jury, even if they were innocent?

I still don't understand why they did it. SBF came from a period as a successful trader. He didn't need to defraud people to be successful. The same thought came to me when watching the Netflix show about Madoff: his pyramid scheme was only a sideline to a successful market-making business, he could have shut it down before his losses became too great, and the losses were only going to get bigger as time went on.

Nate Silver interviewed as SBF as part of research for his book and I think the big take away from it was basically that Sam's attitude to risk was pathological - he was willing to take any sized bet that he thought was positive expected value. The obvious problem with that is that you if you continually take higher and higher risk bets it's certain that you'll eventually lose one of them.

SBF has been widely presented as a person who was constantly running these probabilistic computations and comparing expected values, but this strikes me as total horseshit that is a group invention of SBF himself and journalists who have a much more interesting story when he is a wunderkind.

I'll totally buy that he thinks about risk differently than other people, but not in some more mathematical sense.

Well for a start to run an even passable market making operation and to get into the jobs Sam did you have to be atleast fairly good at the mathematics behind probability. He's definitely more able to reason about probabilities than the average person. But sure, "I'm gonna go steal all these guys deposits to go gambling" wasn't an aggressive but understandable bet, it was the act of a degenerate gambler.

There were two things going on: A) Betting more aggressively than the Kelly Criterion, which indicates a bad understanding of how to reason about risk and EV[1], and, separately B) taking unnecessary, negative EV risks that have no justification beyond laziness.

B) include things like "having such sloppy accounting that you simply forget about major accounts[2] and are unintelligible to potential buyers" and "storing critical private keys in a text file that lots of people have poorly logged access to".

[1] lay explanation: https://sarahconstantin.substack.com/p/why-infinite-coin-fli...

[2] the infamous "hidden, poorly labeled fiat account" for example

Borrow a little from you depositors because you have sure way to make money. Then you fall short a little and now you double down etc. Rinse and repeat.

I dont think it was greed. I think he legitimately thought he was doing the right thing, thought it was fun, and thought it was interesting.

> I dont think it was greed. I think he legitimately thought he was doing the right thing, thought it was fun, and thought it was interesting.

It was absolutely greed by the original sense of the word, which isn't necessary only about money, he knew he was breaking the laws given the step he took to cover his tracks, badly, but he was very well aware of the fraud he was partaking in, it was proven during his trial.

There is the crime and then there is the cover up, or attempt at doing so.

And ever after Sam was arrested he tried to intimidate and discredit, publicly, his co-defendant. He was fully aware of the crimes he committed, he just thought he could miraculously get out of his situation on top, like a trader who just lost and still going to bet everything: that's greed.

I didn't say he was oblivious to the crime. I think he thought we was doing good by his moral compass

> I didn't say he was oblivious to the crime. I think he thought we was doing good by his moral compass

I didn't say you claimed he was oblivious to his crime either.

What you claim being 'his moral compass' didn't stand basic scrutiny during his trial. It was demonstrated he fully knew he was committing fraud, he just didn't care because he was greedy.

Fraud is a crime. That doesn't mean he thought it was bad.

Did he feel bad about that fraud? Do you think he thought it was bad? That it was unjustified?

People break laws all the time but don't think they did anything morally wrong. Hell, I can think of plenty of laws I think are bad or not applicable

> Hell, I can think of plenty of laws I think are bad or not applicable

> Did he feel bad about that fraud? Do you think he thought it was bad?

There's a world of difference between "I think drug possession laws are inappropriate" or other capricious or arbitrary laws, and a person who thinks:

"It's alright for me to deceive and defraud people, because I don't see that as wrong".

Im not arguing that they are they are equivalent. I think I have better morals that SBF. What I am saying is that I think SBFs thought process was closer to:

"It's alright for me to deceive and defraud people, because I don't see that as wrong"

than

"I think I am doing a morally bad thing with no justification and am a bad guy for doing it"

Most people perceive themselves in a good light and justify their actions to themselves, even if an outsider doesnt like their action.

I guess Im not very clear on this, because the other poster keeps replying with "but they know they were breaking the law", which seems entirely beside the point.

> People break laws all the time but don't think they did anything morally wrong.

His trial proved he knew he was breaking the law for personal profit. His behavior absolutely fits the definition of greed.

your original argument is

> I dont think it was greed. I think he legitimately thought he was doing the right thing, thought it was fun, and thought it was interesting.

Again it's all in the trial and the mountains of evidences against him.

Personal enrichment was the motive for the fraud, plain and simple.

He even admitted the whole 'effective altruism' was a farce to get on the good side of the progressive elite and their media, as he was also funneling money to republicans but more discretely all for the same reasons: political connections.

And it worked given the initial portrait left wing media made of him, "someone who got way over his head", they gave him the benefit of the doubt for a long time and he thought he could roll with that image which would get him off the hook... while he was intimidating his co-defendants by releasing personal informations about them... do you also deem the latter just "fun"?

I never said anything was "just fun". I dont know why you would guess that. Inversely, do you think he had no fun in his time with FTX, and it was all misery?

Light sentence compared to Sam. Probably threw him hard under the bus for some leniency.

No probably about it, this is explicitly the deal made with prosecutors.

You are probably right, based on the quote in this very article where the judge says that is exactly the reason.

Not sure why you added ‘probably’

First to squeal gets the deal.

The more they need an insider's testimony to make the case, find the money, and/or track the goods the better the deal can be.

yeah nothing compared to Sam trabucco

How does she have billions of dollars to pay the fine, if not stolen from Alameda/FTX users? How much money will she have when she gets out of jail in less than 2 years?

A forfeited amount is not the same as a fine. The 11 billion also does not mean that Ellison is in possession of that amount. It's simply the amount that can be connected, directly or indirectly, to the illicit activity for which she is convicted.

I am almost positive Sam Trabucco is in witness protection somewhere waiting to testify when they eventually get Tether off the board and crater this useless scamfest excuse of an industry

For whatever reason, the current US administration seems to have decided it’s better to keep Binance and Tether around than to bring down the full force of the law. The next administration is going to be more crypto-friendly. I don’t think this is going to happen.

I have noticed them go after the entities Tether uses as intermediaries like Silvergate, then Binance, then Tron, then $TON etc so they're fighting the good fight.

My guess is when Coinbase gets "hacked" there will be enough political pressure to clean house and enough Dems in power to do it. Fingers crossed that those hacked funds will still be insufficient to fill redemption requests because that's the only way the stablecoin goes under without seizure of reserves.

If SBF didn't have anything to give up on Tether (because he sure as hell would've made a deal if he did) what makes you think Trabucco does?

FTX executives have collectively gotten 35 years in prison (with more to go). Maybe this will help people in this thread see that there is a big picture.

SBF's trial was one of the the most high profile trials in years, and resulted in a long sentence. I can't imagine a two year low security custodial sentence for Ellison is going to change anyone's mind who thinks that the crew got away with it. Caroline very publicly cooporated and testified against SBF.

>Maybe this will help people in this thread see that there is a big picture.

Don't steal money from or offend the rich/elite and you will be all right?

Both SBF and Martin Shkreli have learned that.

Just make sure you're paying taxes.

There are enough wildly different conspiracy theories around these events that I genuinely have no inkling of a clue what you mean. Which big picture are we supposed to see, and what's the relation to 35 years?

People keep saying there's not enough punishment but they're not seeing that somebody is being punished; it's just not Caroline.

Oh okay, yes I see your point and it's a sensible one. Not conspiratorial, sorry if I insinuated that.

The sentences are still all at the low range of what I'd like to see, and it's fine for people to quibble about the relative treatment & how much the cooperation should count for, but yeah, the total is useful context for perspective here.

She should have gotten the same as Sam.

Why?

Her cooperation landed Sam in prison by helping the feds understand the evidence, and alerted them to crimes they hadn't yet discovered.

Sam's cooperation... wasn't. He could have cut a plea deal and he chose to deny everything despite ample evidence.

Acceptance of responsibility is a thing.

How many of us here could steal 8 billion, do orgies at work, and escape with 2 years of prison?

If the justice department was doing their job, and justice is blind... all of us?

It's called a plea deal. She helped out the investigation and got other people convicted. She probably would have gotten no sentence at all if the crime hadn't been so bad.

The Judge "believed Ms. Ellison was genuinely remorseful and that her cooperation had been substantial."

The remorseful bit is a very important component here. She didn't commit the crime with the intention of gaming the system later to get away with it.

Personally, I'm okay with this. It's a huge incentive for others involved in a criminal enterprise to do the same thing in the future. It's worth letting one person off lightly to guarantee you get everyone else.

> How many of us here could steal 8 billion, do orgies at work, and escape with 2 years of prison?

Anyone who could steal 8 billion while being white, rich, female and coming from a privileged family.

It is actually pretty easy once you met those pre-requisites.

Just out of curiosity, what do the orgies have to do with prison time? Are orgies at work illegal?

It speaks to the level of seriousness with which they approached their fiduciary duties, would be my view.

Does it mean they are more or less serious? what exactly are the connections?

Not necessarily illegal from what I understand; but it easily could contribute to a lawsuit for a hostile work environment, could anger investors, and could maybe cause a lawsuit for allowing the executives to be irresponsibly vulnerable to blackmail or rape allegations.

Besides professionalism, it's just plain stupid. What happens if a participant claims they were pressured into it for the sake of a promotion, or for the sake of not being fired, or for the sake of not losing their visa? The result would be a disaster. This is also so predictable, that maybe an investor could claim legal negligence.

Is there any evidence to say that they happened? The only thing I have seen is extrapolation from comments made online about polyamory. Is there a source citing specific events at specific locations?

I think the comment was hyperbole

Chances increase dramatically if we cooperate in testifying against the perceived "mastermind", as Ms. Ellison did.

It seems flawed to assume that he was the mastermind, especially given the actual outcome.

There is a lot of room for manipulation in the justice system in determining the hierarchy and who gets to be offered a sweet deal. Had Caroline been labeled by the media as 'the mastermind' and Sam as 'the help' by the media, the outcomes may have flipped.

The media could totally construct a story where Sam was just the helpless front guy who knew nothing, misled as to the source of the money which Alameda Research was providing.

I think that would be an uphill battle. The money that flowed to Caroline looked like: a base salary of $200,000 a year, semiannual bonuses of up to $20 million, a de minimis equity stake in FTX, and no equity in Alameda. I don’t know what SBF’s salary or bonuses (if any) looked like, but he had a controlling stake in FTX, 90% of Alameda, and borrowed from his companies several times for hundreds of millions at a time. Caroline was nominally the CEO of Alameda but she clearly was not the one in charge of the corporate empire, and if she was masterminding the fraud she did a very poor job of monetizing it.

It’s also not strictly he-said/she-said; there were at least two other executives who knew what was going on, both of whom implicated Sam as the mastermind.

Not to mention when she gets out of prison she’ll be rich. Who knows how much crypto she has stored away.

I'm fairly confident that she would have been required to surrender all of her crypto as part of the plea deal. If she didn't, it's perjury and she gets to go back to jail.

I think I read she owes $11B as part of her conviction.

Not me. I would not serve two years in prison for any amount of money. That is insane.

Nit: have orgies

You can do them too, haha

Two years in prison relaxing and reading books?

A lot of us have blown more years of our lives, in worse environments, to hang on for four-year vesting schedules.

How was your experience from the time of pandemic lockdowns? I don't know about you, but I was pacing around the house like a caged animal after first couple weeks, and I was free to leave the premises and e.g. go for a hike anytime I wanted.

Then you should have just left the premises to go for that hike or a walk in some park at least. There was no moral or practical reason or, as you mention, legal reason not to. The virus wasn't/isn't a demon that hangs around in the open air for days. If you avoided others in open spaces, you'd have put no one at risk. What you describe sounds like some strange obedience fetishism.

Nowhere did I write that I didn't go out for a walk/hike on my own. I limited my activities among other people to the level I deemed safe and moved the rest of my social activities to the Internet, but just that was sufficient to feel caged. It made me recalibrate my opinion on what "1 year in prison" must be like.

It was ok, but I was with people. I'm sure prison is good or bad depending on who you get locked up with. And, given the selection process, maybe those odds aren't great.

Time passes quickly when there's no stimulation. I feel two years would go by in the blink of an eye. In a way, maybe that itself is the punishment.

Proof once again that justice at its highest levels in the US is to punish the poor and middle class and slap the rich on their wrists. There are people who have stolen food to eat who have gotten harsher punishments.

> There are people who have stolen food to eat who have gotten harsher punishments.

Are there?

You can get life in prison for three non-violent convictions of selling LSD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_L._Tyler

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-03-03-me-38444-...

> He and a friend, prosecutors would contend, somewhat intoxicated and possibly playing a game of “truth or dare,” approached four youngsters dining on an extra-large pepperoni pizza.

Not defending three strikes laws from thirty years ago which have since been repealed anyway, but this was not someone "stealing to eat."

> possibly playing a game of "truth or dare"

(Also not defending these laws/the decision there, but) I'm not sure why this is phrased as merely an allegation by the prosecution, since this is what transpired even by his own account.

"One Friday he and some friends were hanging out on the pier on Redondo Beach. He claims he was "playing a stupid game of truth-or-dare with a friend" when he approached a group of kids whose parents had left them eating pizza at an outdoor table and asked them for a slice."

https://web.archive.org/web/20230408113219/https://www.smh.c...

To be fair, poverty builds character. So applying our "Tough On (the poor who commit) Crime" logic:

if even poverty was unable to prevent that person from stealing food when hungry then they are clearly irredeemable.

Yes, but you have to keep in mind that she made a deal to get this lighter sentence, she was a star witness and testified against Sam Bankman-Fried. Deals aren't necessarily for rich or poor, it's just a way for prosecution to accomplish their mission. She didn't get away scot-free, two years isn't the lightest sentence possible. Though she probably did have a good lawyer poor people could never afford...

And keep in mind that she wasn't the mastermind, she was just dumb and easily manipulated...

Dumb? All these people, ONCE THEY'RE CAUGHT, want us to believe that they're dumb.

Her parents are both MIT Professors. She was on the US team(!) for the International Linguistic Olympiad. She won all sorts of academic contests before getting a Math degree from Stanford.

She was CEO of Alameda Research.

And now we're supposed to believe she was a "dumb" naive waif, manipulated and preyed upon by SBF, that evil manipulative shark?!

Game theory works.

I'm more curious if all the money had to be paid back? If she received a salary of millions and did not have to pay that back, I would say white-collar crime is a viable path to becoming a millionaire?

For example, Martha Stewart was in prison, but has never lost a step in her empire.

FOUND:

>> Late Monday, Ellison’s attorneys in a court filing said they had finalized financial settlements with prosecutors and the FTX debtor’s estate.

>> The filing did not say how much she would pay in those settlements, which are separate from the forfeiture order, but it was already known that Ellison’s $10 million in shares in the AI startup Anthropic, which have grown substantially since she first bought them, provide the bulk value of her settlements.

Martha Stewart built that empire well before she dabbled in insider trading. Wikipedia says that she sold $230 thousand of ImClone stock. I doubt that paying that back--and to whom?--would have seriously hurt.

Would you trade years in prison and being a felon for a few million buck? Genuine question.

There are not many jobs out there that pay you a few million dollars for two years of work, so yes!

Downside: among the usual US-specific stuff, as a felon it's much harder to receive most countries' permanent visas. It's a case by case and you will get unlucky. There's often a 'character requirement' which is very loosely defined.

Unless you have hard requirements the visa is worked around easy enough. If you don't work you stay off the radar in most countries. If you are flexible some countries accept criminal reports from your local sheriff/police, which often only show offenses in that jurisdiction.

It rules out the five eyes countries but there's little reason for a US already rich person to emigrate to another similar anglo country.

For instance, I have read court cases of felons who illegally entered Argentina and were later granted Argentine citizenship. And Cambodia sells citizenship that expressly brags basically the king will look at it and decide if you are a douche, no criminal reports iirc.

Pre-marriage Yes. Im a family man now, so not for 2.

2 million is about 10 years of salary. maybe double if you include the time value of money.

Would you spend 2 years in jail now to live 20 years longer? Have 2 more children? to retire 30 years earlier?

2 years in the prison she will end up at or the one SBF is at? For multiple millions, yeah 100% immediately.

2 years in a supermax or in one of the super violent federal prisons... probably not.

Nobody gets their 2 year fed sentence in a medium or pen

(unless they already attempted to escape from the minimum security / camp, or some weird corner cases like that)

Man. American poor people enlist to the army, knowing very well they have a pretty good chance of being sent to be maimed or killed in some desert fighting for some oil company or Israel for far less money than a few million.

Not now, as I have a child, but pre-child, I would give it serious consideration.

For me it's the opposite!

it's dubious whether it would pay off long term given the stigma of being a felon. whatever return there is, probably not enough to account for the mental distress involved

Two years, two million?

I wouldn't, but millions of people would.

You think she stole a few?

At her age with world as your oyster it would be tough.

At 30,40+ already locked into a narrowly defined routine of toddlers screaming at you 24/7 because of some variation of you selected the wrong color cup, and your bank account and energy constantly being drained to zero by thankless familial responsibilities I can see how someone might find it attractive to spend a few years reading in a cell and working out with the cartel bros and some payload of cash waiting to satisfy any remaining child support.

I wonder if we will see similar sentencing for Gary Wang & Nishad Singh.

Idiot girl... but I feel like it could be anyone easily swayed by sleazy characters.

Seems like a situation that just got worse and worse until it was a disaster without remediation.

Meanwhile SBF was quite happy to watch the world burn.

Since the same comment is getting posted over and over about the light sentence, I'm raising this quote here for visibility:

> Prosecutors did not recommend a specific sentence for Ms. Ellison, but they filed a memo to Judge Kaplan praising her “exemplary” cooperation with the government. Her lawyers requested that she serve no prison time.

> “I have seen a lot of cooperators. I have never seen one like Ms. Ellison,” Judge Kaplan said before announcing the sentence. “What she said on the stand was very incriminating of herself, and she pulled no punches about it.”

> Judge Kaplan said the difference between Ms. Ellison and Mr. Bankman-Fried was that “she cooperated and he denied the whole thing.”

We knew her sentence would be light back during SBF's trial because she was a key witness in that case. The prosecutors traded her sentence for his.

Makes sense. This precedent creates the incentives for criminals to cooperate in the future.

Are you saying that if SBF had cooperated in the same way, he would also have gotten 2 years instead of 25? Then he was really badly advised by his lawyers.

In the USA if you exercise your right to a trail then a very heavy trial tax is imposed, especially in Federal cases. https://naacp.org/resources/eliminating-illegal-practice-tri...

You have the right, but you are severely punished if you dare exercise it. This is 'just' (as in keeping with justice) because it helps reduce the strain on our justice system that is not designed and can in no way handle a non-trivial amount of cases actually going to trial and people exercising their rights. Just like companies can no longer function without people giving up their rights and requiring binding arbitration, our justice system would not be able to function if people didn't give up their right to trial.

The USA used to make fun of China because it has enshrined rights in it's constitution that, in practice, are not available or not applicable in actual daily life. I have free speech, but not where people would hear it. I have the right to a trial, but with it comes actuality the government will change my sentence to near life (or the portion of life that has any quality to it) if I dare avail myself of that right.

How many people close to you will die if you dare take your case to trial and get a trial tax imposed? How much of your childrens' lives will you miss? How long will they suffer without you earning money to support them? Or, will you miss out on the child rearing years completely when one starts a family because of the lengthy trial tax? Best to take the plea. There's a reason the Feds conviction rate is 95%, it's the explicit threat/coercion that is the trial tax. Remember, the longer the sentence, the rougher the prison you are sent to as well, because your security rating is heavily based on remaining sentence length. So it's not just a threat of length, but also the level of violence you will be subjected to during imprisonment.

Ironically, you have to testify that you were not coerced, to the judge, in court, to get out of having the trial tax imposed when you take your plea, when the very same judge knows of and is the person who applies the trial tax.

Being guilty and having no reasonable out, while using the justic system procedures as a hail Mary so that you might escape on a technicality should be punished. If you have no remorse you are a clear danger to society.

> being guilty

It is important to dispute this line of thinking because we are ALL guilty of many things through our lives. Our legal system is complicated and whether you think something is just or ethical has no bearing to whether it is legal.

Also remember if I "lie" to a federal agent, I go to prison but when Michael Flynn does it... The whole crime is a disgrace. Why is lying to a federal agent a crime? If they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt what I said was a lie, why does it matter what I said? They already know the truth. If they don't independently know what I said was a lie, how can they prove I lied? And if this is somehow something I missed, why does the national security advisor get a pardon? If he gets a pardon, why don't everyone else convicted of the same charge also get a pardon? This is not justice.

So there are two different things here that you are conflating: the specific pardoning of Michael Flynn and whether lying to a federal agent should be a crime.

Lying to a federal agent is a crime because the Government wants to make it easy to investigate crimes. Hence, lying to them being a crime. You are wasting the taxpayers money by mis-directing the investigators who represent us and are supposed to be investigating crime. That seems reasonable to me, though I did spend some time working as a contractor for the FBI, so I might have incorporated their views too much.

Michael Flynn's case in particular was a travesty because of the pardon power, a weird old legacy of monarchy brought over into our system by people who didn't really think it through, like a lot of weird, arcane corners of the US government. Pardons in general I think we would be better off without. Either it is used for small-bore corruption of the justice system like this, or it is used for things that really ought to be moved through the traditional justice system (pardoning all of the Vietnam draft dodgers, pardoning Nixon, etc.).

If you rob a bank, but the money is recovered, should that be a crime?

I wasn't mincing words. The statement is predicated on being guilty as charged. Not a difficult concept.

What a great mindset. People should be punished for exercising their rights based on an external interpretation of their motive. You realize you are saying rights should only exist after analyzing peoples' intention which is totally contrary to the Universalist definition of rights given by the constitution. To you rights are not something that all people should just intrinsically have. Just like the 'rights' granted by the Chinese constitution.

Nate Silver interviewed SBF before the court case for his book, and asked if he would accept a plea deal:

> The last question I asked him is Hey Sam, what if they gave you a two-year plea deal, right? Two years in some minimum security prison and then you can't do some trading stuff for some probationary period of time. Bankman Fried said no, he wouldn't take that deal. His day in court was worth the risk.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0jqbjp5

Bankman-Fried has a superhuman ability to ignore sound advice.

Whatever it is that got SBF in this mess it's the same thing that prevented him getting out of it with a light sentence. I don't know if that means he deserves it exactly - it seems like a better system wouldn't put a person like him in the place where he could do so much damage, but that's kinda where we're at.

Going to a federal trial in general is almost always a mistake. The feds rarely lose cases; the plea bargain they offer is almost always going to be the best option for you.

Maybe they'd lose more cases if they had to try their cases.

SBF didn't have anyone bigger to flip on.

Who is SBF going to flip on up the chain? The Feds give deals to people lower on the hierarchy to get the people at the top (in this case, in their judgement, SBF alone).

He could have feigned remorse, admitted guilt and flipped it on her.

I dont think that would work. the DOJ had picked the big fish and it was him, for good reason.

Did you read what he was doing while this case went on? Dude was on talk shows and podcasts and posting online while constantly admitting to felonies. I can't think of a worse client, there was absolutely nothing his lawyers could do short of a literal (not figurative) gag.

"Are you saying that if SBF had cooperated in the same way, he would also have gotten"

Why are you asking a rando about a judicial decree?

The legal systems in most countries are rather more nuanced than your if ... then clause.

He’s the trigger man and she’s the gold finger

Probably not, because he led the conspiracy.

True or not he could have created a pretty strong argument the investors purposefully selected a guy set up with all the moral hazards to run off the rails and make them cash while frontrunning a casino. Frame it as a clever deck of plausible deniability by rich elites who created the perfect recipe of a crime without actually explicitly inviting it.

We all know the investors knew what they were doing when they sent this arrogant, inexperienced, greedy sociopath on his course. Unfortunately for him he didn't realize he was also a patsy, and he took pretty much all the heat.

that is a defense you can try to spin in the media, but not a legal defense.

Caroline let it fall up

So all diddy needs to do is get on the stand and describe every single party of his and he’ll get a slap on the wrist?

While there should be more incentives to cooperate, like the type of prison, allowed visits, etc. claiming someone should serve less time because they described so much of their own crimes is kind of silly

In the real world, a prosecutor can only nail a higher-up with the cooperation of the people lower down. Those people only cooperate if they get a lighter sentence. It's too bad, but that's how it is and it plays out every day in criminal courts.

As for Diddy: a real, disinterested DOJ would say, "oh, you can testify against <people more famous than you>? Well, we might be able to cut you a deal."

Of course, if the DOJ is not interested in prosecuting those people, then no deal. If they think Diddy is already important enough and they can't let him slide, then no deal, or at least, a medium-stiff sentence.

Finally, two years in prison is not a picnic. See if you want to do it.

> Finally, two years in prison is not a picnic. See if you want to do it.

Seriously. I'm shocked how cavalier people are about the lengths of prison sentences. Two years in prison is a LOOONNNNGG time.

I was once detained for an hour in a small room at a border. Being deprived of my freedom, my phone, and any comfort, was fairly devastating.

Two years is very short in the US for serious crimes. The US has more people in prison per capita than any other developed country by a wide, wide, wide margin, largely in part because of the judicial system's willingness to hand down sentences for relatively minor crimes that would be seen as insane in most other countries.

For what she was charged with, two years is probably the bare minimum that was available at sentencing given the constraint of "must serve jail time".

Meanwhile in Germany, the sentence range for human trafficking is 6 months to a max of 5 years. Stealing a child is also max 5 years (if you're not intending to sell it).

The contrast is pretty stark.

Basically every free person in the US can get a 26,000 lb truck or a semi auto rifle in under an hour.

Germany has taken the other approach and implemented policies to make their country closer to a prison with all kind of harsher regulations, then reducing prison time.

There are merits to be found in either approach.

genuinely interesting thought. I haven't decided if it carries any water, but interesting.

Why would harsher penalties be required in a place where individuals have more capability to do harm? That seems to place a lot of faith in a linear efficacy of deterrence

Incapacitation.

After she comes out she can write a book maybe sell movie right etc and she will be ok. Look at Anna Delvey or Jordan Belfort. Maybe she hid some crypto.

But a lighter sentence could, for example, range from no jail time to rates of less than 100 percent of the expected sentence in the case of non-cooperation. The prosecutor's recommendation of no jail time is frankly disappointing. She may not have been the main offender, but she committed the crimes. What would her sentence have been if she did not cooperate (and suppose other did or there was enough evidence anyway)? Fifteen+ years? Two years is not a picnic, but given the alternative, it looks like it is.

The prosecutor didn't recommend no jail time. Ellison's lawyers did.

Also, in addition to jail time, she's going to owe a huge sum of money. The feds are going to have a claim on any money she makes for the rest of her life.

For better or worse (I think a little of both), long max sentences exist in the US criminal justice system to allow rewarding cooperators and to threaten non-cooperators alike.

> Prosecutors did not recommend a specific sentence for Ms. Ellison

It was her lawyers that asked for no jail time. Not the prosecutors.

According to the article I read (CNBC), "The prison term was significantly stiffer than the recommendation by the federal Probation Department that Judge Lewis Kaplan sentence Ellison, who had run the hedge fund Alameda Research, to three years of supervised release, with no time at all behind bars". In the same article, "Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon urged Kaplan for leniency".

It seems to me, as prosecutors and Probation Dept talk to each other, that all, except Kaplan, agreed on no prison time for Ellison.

> The prosecutor's recommendation of no jail time is frankly disappointing

It could have been disingenuous. Maybe they knew the judge wouldn't go for it.

As for her not cooperating: would you rather SBF skate free?

I don't know what the case against SBF would have looked like without her, and I suspect you don't, either.

You suspect well, I do not. Let me ask you another question for which you and I do not know the answer. Since she got 2 years in prison, she was not promised (i.e. she did not sign any binding agreement with the prosecutor, beyond "we will do our best to get you a lenient sentence") not to go to prison. Why then not a sentence of 5, 10, 15 years in prison?

Why not just nail her to the wall after the fact? Is integrity of the prosecutor a valid answer?

In almost any profession, your word is all you have. Welsh on someone, and no one will trust you anymore.

I did not say or believe that the prosecutor lied or they should renege on their word, far from it. I said that if she got two years, it means that the agreement Ellison-DA was not for no prison time in exchange for cooperation.

Thus I asked why two years and not five or ten of whatever time under the expected sentence time in case of no cooperation.

The prosecutor doesn't pick a time, and cant promise it. The judge selects the sentence. This judge thought 2 years was reasonable after the fact, and was not bound to it.

Read who I was replying to (which was not you). They said,

"Is integrity of the prosecutor a valid answer?"

Yes it is.

I don't know how that all plays out, to be perfectly honest.

She didn't just describe her own crimes, although I'm sure that played a part.

She also described somebody else's crimes, and did that in a way which helped the government with sentencing the "real villain."

You only get a reduced sentence if you cooperate in the prosecution against someone else the government / prosecutor is just as or more interested in. That wouldn't be the case with the diddle.

Not technically true. Even without a formal plea, you can enter a plea of guilty and throw yourself on the mercy of the court. Showing remorse and admitting your crimes definitely makes judges like you more!

We want to bribe criminals to betray each other. The people who they are betraying could do anything up to killing them to prevent this, and we have to compete with that.

The world gets zero benefit to imprisoning this woman indefinitely, it in fact costs money, and if the government had to prove their case against her without her cooperation, it would just cost even more money. Not letting a fully-cooperating sucker like her off is the opposite of a deterrent to crime. It's telling low-level people who are involved in crimes that it's better to keep quiet. We want to encourage them to betray. I hope when she gets out she becomes a celebrity, and it encourages other young people to decide to whistleblow or turn snitch on the scammy companies they work for.

> The world gets zero benefit to imprisoning this woman indefinitely

What sorts of people does the world benefit from imprisoning indefinitely, and where on the spectrum does, say, being a serial and unrepentant shoplifter, stealing mid-four figures sums compare to being a financial criminal stealing mid-eight-figure sums?

She wasn't a 'low level whistleblower', she was one step below the ringleader, and only came clean after the whole thing went tits up and she was staring down two decades in federal.

If you're looking for heroes and whistleblowers, I don't think there were any in that whole organization. Just rats turning on eachother once the trap snapped shut around them.

I think a serial shoplifter or thief is worse. It is a bigger problem for me personally, and impacts far more people. Therefore I think it deserves harsher penalties.

A thief will steal from a few stores. A fraudster of that magnitude steals from anywhere between thousands to millions of people.

There is the magnitude of an individual and the magnitude of the summer for each problem.

>So all diddy needs to do is get on the stand and describe every single party of his and he’ll get a slap on the wrist?

Do you honestly think this is how the legal system works?

No, because when prosecutors offer a light sentence to a secondary criminal in a conspiracy, it's usually a strategic decision to secure cooperation in prosecuting the main target. It wouldn't make sense that a lighter sentence for an accomplice/secondary sets a precedent for a principal actor and Diddy is the principal actor in his case, AFAIK.

(I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with any of this, just saying this is the internally consistent approach.)

> In recent months, Ms. Ellison has collaborated on a math textbook with her parents, who both teach at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And she has written a novella set in Edwardian England that is “loosely based on her sister Kate’s imagined amorous exploits,” her mother, Sara Fisher Ellison, wrote in a letter to the court.

What strange sad details. And absolutely baffling inclusions in this article and in this court case, compared to something like

> Since her guilty plea, Ms. Ellison has struggled to find paying work, according to the memo her lawyers filed. At one point, the memo said, she had secured a position helping low-income families with their taxes, only to have the offer revoked after the employer realized who she was.

which has an obvious angle and story it's trying to sell

From the excerpts, I find the former far more humanizing and interesting. The second quote could describe the situation of just about any criminal or felon in the US. The former made me imagine a talented and interesting person I would like to have at a dinner party.

I agree the story has an angle, but so does every story. I much prefer some clear but colorful statements like this to the more typical twisting and omission of facts

My brain skipped the Caroline part and I totally believed it

It’s amazing, one guy did everything completely by himself.

No, he had lots of help and this lady, who helped put him away, is also going away for two years because of her part in it. She would have gone away for longer, but she put effort into trying to correct her bad decisions.

I do not like the US judicial system and also I think this particular example is pretty reasonable.

Wikipedia states FTX had 300 employees total. How many were in the inner circle? SBF: pled not guilty, 25 years. Ryan Salame, co-CEO: pled guilty, 90 months. Gary Wang & Nishad Singh, co-founder & engineering director: pled guilty, awaiting sentencing later this year. Caroline Ellison, Alameda CEO: guilty, two years.

That's five high ranking folks 'in the know'. Likely others who knew but they didn't have enough evidence for an airtight case.

I have no skin in the game, and can't judge the sincerity of her remorse, but 2 years seems astonishingly low, given she was a senior executive of a multi-billion dollar fraud.

Almost makes it worth having a go at one.

It's because she assisted the prosecution so got a big discount

Exactly, what nobody is talking about is she is only remorseful because she got CAUGHT

If they gave her a life ruining sentence the next defrauding billionare's wife/girlfriend might not be so cooperative.

It does indeed, if you could squirrel away a few million from nosey prosecutors, do your two years and come out "clean" the other side (assuming it's a federal rap with no possibility of remission for his behavior).

Seriously? There is no amount of money I would be willing to serve two years in prison for.

She has no money, can’t get a job, and is going to be IN PRISON for two years.

I never understand people who seem to think any amount of jail time is trivial. I wouldn’t serve 30 days in jail for a billion dollars.

> I never understand people who seem to think any amount of jail time is trivial.

There's "jail" (colloquial for generic/television "prison" and all the real and fictional horrors that evokes), and then there's "minimum security womens' prison". These are qualitatively different things, and Ms Ellison is headed for the latter.

> I wouldn’t serve 30 days in jail for a billion dollars.

Interesting. I suspect that for a lot less than that, most people would even consider serving 30 days in a supermax. Or solitary confinement.

We have a few regular posters here on HN who have spent much more than 30 days in some version of "prison". I am not one of them, so my thoughts are of little value, but I would be very curious to hear theirs.

I would do 30 days of solitary confinement for $1m without hesitation.

Me too!

If the food is passable and I can read books/meditate, I'd do it for free. That'd be a very nice holiday from child rearing.

> I wouldn’t serve 30 days in jail for a billion dollars.

I certainly would. $1 billion is well into "never work again" territory, and lots of people spend much more time in jail than that, have far fewer resources waiting for them, and turn out just fine.

Nobody said that jail time is trivial. I take it very seriously, but you're going way overboard in saying you would refuse $1 billion to spend 30 days in jail. That is such a large amount of money that you are set for the rest of your life, never have to worry about any needs again. 30 days of pure concentrated misery is something a lot of people would be willing to pay for that kind of reward.

A lot depends on the individual and the likelihood of something terrible happening to you in jail. Assault and sexual assault are common, and some people are more vulnerable to that than others. You may not be willing to endure PTSD for any sum of money, for example.

Let’s also consider the fact that in terms of day-to-day experience, a billion dollars is not worth much more than a few million. I have floated in an infinity pool at a five star resort and I’ve also floated in a temporary aboveground pool in my backyard and the experience is 95% the exact same. A billion dollars sounds like a lot but what exactly is it good for? SBF had billions and also said he derived no pleasure from anything. I’d rather have my unjailed normal experience.

You can try to justify it all you want, but we all know if you were genuinely offered that deal, you'd take it.

It’s true, I would.

But everyone is different. I have a probably uneducated belief that I am charming enough and resilient enough to get through a month in jail without too much harm coming to me.

Unless they knew you were going to have a billion dollars once you got out.

Interesting point - I assume this would be helpful given I could reasonably promise them huge rewards for protecting me. Is that what you meant, or do you think this would actually increase the danger level?

> I wouldn’t serve 30 days in jail for a billion dollars.

You’d rather spend 50 years _totally free_ in your cubicle?

I served 30-ish days in jail for a lot less than that. Not that I had a lot of choice in the matter.

> I wouldn’t serve 30 days in jail for a billion dollars.

Prison isn’t that bad. Especially a federal minimum security woman’s prison. It’s basically like a summer camp, but with nothing fun to do.

Never been, but I suspect GP’s comments has to do with the stigma and limitations once you are a convicted felon.

Having a billion will override any stigma of a convicted felon. Throw a few million at charity and you will be a celebrated and respected member of society. You will get more respect than most people who work a regular job without breaking laws.

>Throw a few million at charity and you will be a celebrated and respected member of society. You will get more respect than most people who work a regular job without breaking laws.

Yep. cf. Michael Milken[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Milken

That’s who came to mind when I wrote the comment.

I suppose that's the same mindset that governs people who are fine with getting tickets driving in HOV lanes.

In the context of GP's quoting, you'd be a convicted felon, sure. But you'd also be a billionaire, and which point I'd not be terribly concerned about "stigma".

My understanding that being a convicted felon is terrible because it can make it difficult to ever secure a decent job. Does she ever need to work again?

Bingo. For as little as, say, $10 million, you wouldn’t even have to work again or voluntarily interact with other humans. So who cares if you can’t get a job due to “stigma”? I’d sit in my living room collecting my monthly interest checks, not giving a single shit about what anyone, including employers, thought about me.

Enough money insulates you from ever having to care about what anyone thinks of you.

"I wouldn’t serve 30 days in jail for a billion dollars."

That would be a no brainer for me. I would do a year, no problem. Probably more.

Corporate america is like a prison. Only you have the illusion of choice.

And American prisons are corporate.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_...

I believe at one point Jimmy Zhong mentioned something about how living like a billionaire for nine years was worth the one year prison sentence he received. I guess the key is to stay away from violence, and then once it's up admit you were wrong and state that you are committed to reform (or whatever your lawyers tell you to say).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Zhong

The Bitcoin was only worth $620,000 at the time though, and he only was able to do so because he stumbled upon a bug in the Silk Road, so it wasn't premeditated. That's very different from intentionally gambling with billions of dollars from your customer's money like Ellison or SBF.

>living like a billionaire for nine years was worth the one year prison sentence he received

He's only been out for a little bit. Give it 10 years and ask him how being a broke felon is. Especially with a fraud conviction which will preclude him from employment even more.

That guy will never be "broke."

Yeah, if you can find one where there’s a more senior exec with more culpability who you can flip on. And once you’ve found that, you might as well become a whistleblower instead, which has considerable upside and much lower downside.

Will they put her with Sam Bankman-Fried in the same prison cell?

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