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.
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.
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.
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.).
> 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.
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.
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.