Well I agree with your argument about not begrudging him mounting a strong defense (but still hoping he is convicted), I have to wonder about the conditions of a Bahamian prison vs. a US prison. I have no first hand knowledge about the conditions of either country’s prisons, but I’m certainly left to speculate…
this work you mention - asserting a vigorous defense at the start is how he measures the options. giving the guilty plea and then asking “that was fast, you’ll give me credit for it?” is not how it works.
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So will any of the politicians give back SBF’s ill-gotten donations?
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Sure but fighting the extradition seems pointless. On what grounds does he not meet the terms of the extradition treaty? That seems like a completely separate question from is he guilty and if he is what should his punishment be.
I’m not saying he shouldn’t try to minimize his sentence. But fighting extradition doesn’t really accomplish that.
if the Bahamas was a country that had a near term experience for him (in his eyes) that would be demonstrably worse than the US, he would probably swim back to the states to avoid it. he must have calculated that his treatment/experience awaiting whatever while in the bahamas was advantageous to him.
he should do whatever he thinks helps him. on what grounds does he not meet the terms of the extradition treaty? I don’t know. IANAL. But someone (who likely is a lawyer) must have determined fighting it was worth doing for him.
Or worth doing for the Bahamian lawyer, who probably charges by the hour but only until the extradition goes through.
And probably doesn’t accept bitcoin tokens
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you know, I hear there are other ways to charge for work…
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I guess I feel like if he thinks he’s guilty, why didn’t he flee to a country with no extradition treaty? And if he thinks he is innocent, why is he contesting extradition? Why not go home and fight the charges.
Or heck, if he knows he’s guilty and expects to lose, it might be worth serving time so he can eventually return to being a free man in the US. He’s young, he’s unlikely to get an effective life term. But even so, why fight extradition?
Maybe he feels he shouldn’t be subject to US jurisdiction and that any alleged crimes should be prosecuted by the Bahama court system. I have no clue if he feels this way but I’m guessing he thinks the Bahamas will better for him than the US.
Like others, I don’t have a problem with him mounting a defense or contesting extradition. That said fighting extradition does seem like a guilty thing to do, sort of like pleading the 5th isn’t an admission of guilt but doesn’t exactly look like an innocent thing to do from the outside.
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IFYP?
did he get rich off these investors?
Or did he spend and invest the money stupidly, screwing everyone, himself included?
I assume a bit of both.
ok. He is being compared to Madoff.
Madoff knew he was ripping off people and getting very rich off them. As long as he kept getting new blood, and no one cashed out completely, he could keep it going
Here, i see someone managing large sums of other peoples money, who had no business doing so and taking risks he shouldn’t have taken. Also spending it in ways that wasn’t his right
no less criminal, just less malicious
Based on what I’ve read it seems like he knew he was ripping people off. Conceivably he was so deluded he thought it would all work out in the end.
The only thing I’ve read that would make it clear he knew he was ripping people off is an allegation he was in a signal group called “wirefraud”. But the claims I’ve seen aren’t sourced, signal is encrypted, and SBF denies it. So i think it’s just an accusation, not evidence. In fact, until i see a claim that one of the other people alleged to be in that group is the source of the rumor, I’m taking it as a made-up claim. It’s about as solid as my claiming what twig said to her husband over breakfast. I can’t know what twig said unless she or her husband tells me, and random journalists can’t know what chats SBF was in unless one of the members of the chat tells the journalist.
He certainly did a lot of bad things, like failing to keep business records of significant transactions. But those could be stupid bad things. They might not be malicious bad things.
He knew Alameda was borrowing from FTX. And someone altered the code to make it so Alameda was never cut off. I find it incomprehensible that he didn’t know about that. Actually, I find it incomprehensible that the change wasn’t made at his insistence. Did you read ArthurItas’s link?
I would include that improper borrowing as a bad thing that might not have been malicious. That is, he might have believed he’d be paying it all back.
There’s no question that he did bad things that hurt people and should be prosecuted. But i don’t think we know whether he intended or expected to hurt people. Bernie Madoff did.
i see him more as a gambling addict, making riskier bets in hope of covering his huge losses.
Aware he screwed up in the first place, but always feeling he’ll hit the big one
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