Sam Bankman-Fried, the tousle-haired mogul who founded the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, was convicted on Thursday of all seven charges of fraud and conspiracy after a monthlong trial that laid bare the hubris and risk-taking across the crypto industry. These charges carry a maximum sentence of 110 years....
The jury of nine men and three women began deliberating at 3:15 p.m. and was out for a little over four hours including dinner.
November 2, 2023
"Sam Bankman-Fried... was found guilty on all seven charges of fraud and conspiracy."
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46 comments:
Wow, that was quick.
"Guilty as hell free as a bird." (Bill Ayers, 60's radical, friend of the Lightbringer)
Unlike the Trump trial- straightforward easy to prove fraud with actual victims who lost money and were harmed by the fraud.
Meantime no one has stepped forward in Trump’s trial saying they were defrauded. We only have a judge declaring fraud happened without victims.
Easy call.
If only he had paid the 10% to the Big Guy.
Was he sentenced to a haircut and a 'Queer Eye' makeover?
He is facing the real world now. God have mercy on his soul.
"tousle-haired mogul"
You mean the lying fraudster who stole millions from other people? The desire of the MSM to whitewash this guys crimes, even goes so far as to make him sound physically attractive. Which he is not.
I guess if you're not bald and dumpy. Or look like Eli Lake or Bill Maher, you're attractive to the NYT's readership.
With a name like Bankman, not living up to it spelled doom.
Will Dem politicos now be forced to repay his fraudulently financed campaign contributions, in order to make his victims whole?
traditionalguy said...
"He is facing the real world now. God have mercy on his soul."
I'm an atheist but, yep, something like that.
The jury of nine men and three women began deliberating at 3:15 p.m. and was out for a little over four hours including dinner.
I imagine the decision took more like four minutes than four hours, but someone noticed that they could get a free meal out of it if they waited to announce the verdict.
Oh Yea said...
If only he had paid the 10% to the Big Guy.
I imagine he did. Didn't help. No grifter remembers that he owes you a favor when you're broke.
Trump’s trial saying they were defrauded. We only have a judge declaring fraud happened without victims.
Two observations. One, the government lacks standing to bring suit. Two, the judge and AG are guilty of defrauding the government by undervaluing the property. The IRS should audit the AG and judge.
Note to other Democratic sweethearts, donate, today, tomorrow, and forward-looking.
Let's see what sentence is actually imposed and served before we can make judgments on whether justice has been done.
Son of two law professors and a major Dem party donor. He stole billions, then talked to the Press before trial and testified at trial. Looks to me to be a set up for ineffective assistance of counsel.
Ann, what do you think?
I'm waiting to see what the sentence is, and where it is to be carried out. Of course there is always the appeals process, but I don't see it being overturned. I'm sure all the right connected people have already moved their '10%' enough to obscure the trail. Poor old Sam's gonna be getting a new haircut.
Funny how they waited until just after the midterms to arrest him. Pretty tough to pay swindled investors back in already aired pro-Democrat political ads. But I'm sure the timing was just another in a line of never-ending coincidences that always seem to advantage our friendly Democrat overlords.
Cue the pissed crybaby stories from VicE, NYMag, Vulture, Vox, Mother Jones, and all the other far left rags about how "being defrauded by SB-F is actually a GOOD thing..."
Let's see what sentence is actually imposed
Indeed, let's see what sentence the government even requests.
He faces a second trial for bank fraud and foreign bribery.
Big Mike is correct. Within a certain time frame after jury instruction, many judges plan for either a lunch or dinner for the jury deliberating, as it takes time for a restaurant at meal time to fit in a 12 to 14 person order. I was on a jury for an assault charge in PA, took us 15 minutes to convict, but we had to socialize for an hour or so until lunch arrived. There was one heavily tattooed young woman I had qualms about, but she was the first, before even electing a foreman, and we were still sitting down who announced 'no question, guilty'. That relearnt me a valuable lesson on 'books and covers'.
This guy is a genetically gifted conman. And his heart is in the "right place".
"Make me look sexy," Donald Trump Jr. told a courtroom illustrator after he finished testifying Thursday in the NY AG's civil lawsuit. The ex-president's son pointed out an image of Sam Bankman-Fried as inspiration.
Sam BANK-man Fried-Egg always struck me as a Jeffrey Epstein-like "construct" built by someone in the shadows. 1. Grab a perhaps autistic eccentric to continue the Silicon Valley mythology of eccentric super-geniuses. 2. Market him to impressionable marks/"investors" to launder money for the power players behind the scenes. 3. As autistic and lacking good sense, hang him out as the fall guy if anything goes wrong.
Bill Gates anointed Mark Zuckerberg as a younger version of himself "Harvard dropout super-genius" to push Facebook on us all. Who anointed Fried-egg?
Shorter ‘fly: “look! Squirrel!”
SBF didn't get much of a ride. The world's biggest fraud for the world's shortest time. Even Holmes managed to keep the ball in play longer, and she'll probably do less prison time. Kenneth Lay of Enron had a pretty good run, but the reigning champ remains Bernie Madoff. Madoff got to live most of his life as a wealthy, well respected man. There were those postscript years in prison, but, all in all, he drove a pretty hard bargain with life.....All of the above are frauds that we know about. Perhaps there are others whose success can be measured by the fact that we know nothing about them. Perhaps a just God let them invest some of their ill gotten gains with Madoff, Holmes, or SBF but life is seldom that neat.
Iman said...
Shorter ‘fly: “look! Squirrel!”
I agree that Donald Trump's #1 failson is distracted. It seems to me that he needs to concentrate on the fraud lawsuit that will cost the Trump family its New York properties to pay a disgorgement verdict of something north of $250 million. "I don't recall" answers under oath are not helpful at all.
Q: How many ADD kids does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Let's go ride our bikes!
That bank man got fried.
"The jury of nine men and three women began deliberating at 3:15 p.m. and was out for a little over four hours including dinner."
Years ago when I was new to the practice, if a jury retired to deliberate on a Friday afternoon in Fulton County (Atlanta), a judge could nearly assure a quick verdict by ordering supper out from the Varsity, a Georgia Tech dive on North Avenue. Especially if you included lots of their famous chili dogs in the order. Fast justice, right on time!
His mother, Her academic work centers on a branch of ethics known as consequentialism, or the idea that the results of our actions are more important than abstract notions of right and wrong.[1]
He's his mother's son.
Ten bucks says that SBF gets pardoned by Biden on his way out the door in Jan 2025.
How would that be any different than Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich?
traditionalguy:
He is facing the real world now. God have mercy on his soul.
Not my sentiments.
I used to be responsible for the advice (basically a check between banks) system at a large KC bank. It moved around 1.2B a day in 1990. One piece I wrote was a fail-safe in case of system down. Once brought back up, it found it's place and proceeded.
The reason being that at (let's say a low 2% annual), 1.2B comes out to roughly 24M per year OR ~$7.6 per second.
These monies were the aggregate of a butt-load of Teacher's Union funds; people, businesses, charities, etc.
The money he stole undoubtedly cost someone a medical procedure or a hospital either needed equipment or the coverage for.
I have zero pity for whatever happens to the scum.
SBF thought by spreading his wealth generously between the Biden presidential campaign, the DNC, & Dem congressional reps and senators (he was the second largest donor behind Soros), he was paying protection money. Being young and stupid on how politics work, SBF didn’t understand that you need to play the game with finesse and not blunt and overwhelming force. Plus, I am guessing that some of the money he was playing with belonged to powerful Dem donors who do know how to play the game and they put pressure on Biden to use the DOJ to teach this punk a lesson.
very fast. particularly for a financial case. Was a foreman for an Assault (maiming) case
you got to:
- get settled
- pick a foreperson
- read and understand the nuances of the charges
- read and understand the jury instructions
putz around
- first vote
- bargain
- vote
- vote
etc
Far worse than the actual crimes for which he was properly convicted, is the embarrassment to his Democratic and liberal friends and liberal political office holders he donated to. Well, former friends.
Four hours is fast. (Especially for such a complex case.) I've been on a few juries and we always deliberated for several days. The evidence against him must have been substantial.
It's not that I wish anything bad on him, but he needs to be punished to discourage people from doing the same thing. Just imagine how many lives he ruined. I wish that it didn't have to happen but it needs to happen for the greater good. It's very sad. This is a situation where almost everyone lost.
When the defendant and his legal team were notified that the jury had reached its decision, I wonder if their gut reaction at that time was "it's bad for us that the decision was so fast" or the reverse.
loudogblog said...
Four hours is fast. (Especially for such a complex case.) I've been on a few juries and we always deliberated for several days. The evidence against him must have been substantial.
It rally wasn't that complex. From the outside, this appears to be a case where the client was an idiot (however high his IQ might be , his ability to understand the real world was just not there), leaving the lawyers nothing to do but bill lots of hours.
Molly White did a really good job following the trial:
https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/s/the-ftx-files?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=menu
This was my introduction to her coverage, and the part where teh case became really simple:
https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/the-fraud-was-in-the-code
SBF ordered that their systems be set up so that Alameda Finance could dip as deep into customer funds as they wanted, after first promising that never, under any circumstances, would they do that.
Then SBF insisted on testifying, and spent a lot of time insulting the jury's intelligence with BS "I can't recall" lines.
I wasn't the least bit surprised it only took 4 hours
I heard some pundits on air suggest that him testifying and stating multiple times something along the lines of "how could I possibly be expected to remember back that far". Telling the jury that you basically do not remember anything you did the last few years when three of your cohorts have already told the court that yes we committed fraud and SBF told us what to do and how to do it is most likely not going to go over well with your jury.
Now as to whether he actually gets to spend a lot of quality time in the gray rock college remains to be seen. But he surely deserves all the time in jail he gets.
The genius Elon Musk had predicted that since Bankman-Fried was a Democrat, he would never be indicted much less convicted.
Gospace said...
"Unlike the Trump trial- straightforward easy to prove fraud with actual victims who lost money and were harmed by the fraud.
Meantime no one has stepped forward in Trump’s trial saying they were defrauded. We only have a judge declaring fraud happened without victims."
Well then I guess Trump's lawyers have grounds for appeal. Good luch raising that in the App Div First.
But they're too busy citing Breibart in open court during trial.
gadfly said...
"I don't recall" answers under oath are not helpful at all. "
It worked for The Gipper when he testified during Iran-Contra.
The jurors were a bunch of anti-semites.
This case looked bad for Democrats. Much of that fraud was channeled to political coffers. Like Epstein, this case needed to disappear quickly. So without much fanfare for a multi billion fraud loss, SBF is convicted. You might not have even known the trial began. Nobody will hear the testimony of where the money went. Just like nobody heard the testimony of where the girls were trafficked.
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