Sam Bankman-Fried Requests New Trial in FTX Crypto Fraud Case (courthousenews.com) 58
While serving his 25-year prison sentence, "convicted former cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried on Tuesday requested a new federal trial," reports Courthouse News, "based on what he says is newly discovered evidence concerning his company's solvency and its ability to repay all FTX customers for what prosecutors portrayed as the looting of $8 billion of his customers' money..."
Bankman-Fried says evidence disclosed since his trial disproves prosecutors' case about Bankman-Fried's hedge fund running a multi-billion deficit of FTX customer funds, and instead shows that FTX always had sufficient assets to repay the cryptocurrency platform's customer deposits in full. "What it faced was a short-term liquidity crisis caused by a run on the exchange, not insolvency," he wrote...
Bankman-Fried also accuses the Department of Justice of coercing a guilty plea and cooperation deal from Nishad Singh — a close friend of Bankman-Fried's younger brother — who testified at trial as a cooperating witness... Bankman-Fried says in the motion that prior to being pressured into a guilty plea, Singh's initial proffer to investigators "contradicted key parts of the government's version of events. But following threats from the government, Mr. Singh changed his proffers to fit the government's narrative and pleaded guilty to charges carrying up to 75 years in prison, with a promise from the prosecution that it would recommend little or no jail time if it concluded that his assistance in prosecuting Mr. Bankman-Fried was 'substantial,'" he wrote in the petition...
Additionally, Bankman-Fried requested that U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over his 2023 trial, recuse himself from ruling on this motion, "because of the manifest prejudice he has demonstrated towards Mr. Bankman-Fried."
"Bankman-Fried's mother, Stanford Law School professor Barbara Fried, filed his self-represented bid for a new trial on his behalf in Manhattan federal court..."
Bankman-Fried also accuses the Department of Justice of coercing a guilty plea and cooperation deal from Nishad Singh — a close friend of Bankman-Fried's younger brother — who testified at trial as a cooperating witness... Bankman-Fried says in the motion that prior to being pressured into a guilty plea, Singh's initial proffer to investigators "contradicted key parts of the government's version of events. But following threats from the government, Mr. Singh changed his proffers to fit the government's narrative and pleaded guilty to charges carrying up to 75 years in prison, with a promise from the prosecution that it would recommend little or no jail time if it concluded that his assistance in prosecuting Mr. Bankman-Fried was 'substantial,'" he wrote in the petition...
Additionally, Bankman-Fried requested that U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over his 2023 trial, recuse himself from ruling on this motion, "because of the manifest prejudice he has demonstrated towards Mr. Bankman-Fried."
"Bankman-Fried's mother, Stanford Law School professor Barbara Fried, filed his self-represented bid for a new trial on his behalf in Manhattan federal court..."
Give hime another 25 years instead (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the only way there can be some justice.
Re:Give hime another 25 years instead (Score:5, Insightful)
He's still in prison? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Why hasn't he just sent Trump a bribe and received a full pardon like the rest of them?
If he was just a rapist or something minor that would be a no-brainer, but these are economic crimes we are talking about, and some of Trump's acquaintances may have been victims.
Re:He's still in prison? (Score:4, Informative)
If he was just a rapist or something minor that would be a no-brainer,
Or a former president of a South American country implicated in the mass smuggling of drugs. No, not Maduro, the other one. [bbc.co.uk]
but these are economic crimes we are talking about, and some of Trump's acquaintances may have been victims.
That didn't stop him releasing Changping Xiao.
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Trump is big on economic crimes, especially crypto scams. Maybe that's the real reason - Sam's crimes made Trump's own scams less effective due to all the negative publicity.
A little surprised Trump has done an Epstein files NFT yet.
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Defrauding investors is something billionares take very seriously. He isn't going anywhere. You can get away with a lot of crimes, but stealing from the wealthy comes with severe punishment.
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Re: He's still in prison? (Score:1)
Going for funny? I think it's because SBF is too honest. Michael Lewis wrote a very interesting book about the case...
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Why hasn't he just sent Trump a bribe and received a full pardon like the rest of them?
My guess is this is step one in his ascension to a permanent cabinet position on God Emperor Trump's advisory board. Probably be the new crypto czar in about six months or so.
So... (Score:1)
He bought enough Trump coins by now?
"Newly discovered evidence" (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation: The President is now Donald J Trump.
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We promise to back FTX2.0 with Trump Coin.
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Translation: The President is now Donald J Trump.
Ease up. SBF is a fraudster. They don't get clemency. That is reserved for podophiles, child traffickers, drug lords, and insurrectionists.
He’s been treated so unfairly (Score:3, Funny)
As Trump pardons him, I can hear it now:
“He’s been treated very very very very unfairly. Very very unfairly. Some people say more unfairly than anyone. I think worse maybe. It’s a disgrace. “
Then onto the big-eyed blonde in the black turtleneck with the fake deep voice .
FTX customers came out ahead, didn't they? (Score:1)
What is undeniably true is that customers are set to receive everything back plus interest--around 120% of their balance. They would have probably done a lot better if they had been able to hang onto their crypto.
What's more, there's this from NPR:
Vulture investors who bought up bankruptcy claims from FTX could see huge returns [npr.org]
Re: FTX customers came out ahead, didn't they? (Score:3)
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Re:FTX customers came out ahead, didn't they? (Score:5, Interesting)
Amazing he finds the money after he figures out he's not getting out. Interesting you trust criminals.
That's not how it worked. When FTX was declared insolvent, its affairs were handed over to an independent party to try to work out what went on, where the money went, and whether they could recoup investor's funds. By all accounts, FTX and Alameda had very poor or no book-keeping, and it took Some Time for all the various investments and accounts that they had to come to light.
TLDR: It was an independent third party who retrieved the funds that Bankman-Fried said were there all along.
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Doing bad accounting isn't the same as stealing money, is it? He says the money was always there, and apparently it was. If true then where's the prosecution's case?
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No, it's not the same as stealing money or committing fraud. It's also largely irrelevant to my response - it wasn't SBF suddenly finding the money because he wasn't getting pardoned, it was out of his hands by then.
An answer to your question is that if he broke the law but creditors didn't miss out because the underlying crypto rose hugely in value, he still broke the law. The legal system rarely works on the "no harm, no foul" law. You don't avoid a speeding ticket simply because you weren't involved
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It can be, depending on the timing and who is involved. To posit a simple example: if I'm invested in your company and your poor accounting says "oh crap we're broke", and I use that information to sell my stake? When you find the money and go "whoopsie doodle we're actually SUPER profitable!", there's going to be some very hard questions about who was buying the company and what they knew when.
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Doing bad accounting isn't the same as stealing money, is it? He says the money was always there, and apparently it was. If true then where's the prosecution's case?
"I'm sorry IRS agent, I didn't mean to not disclose the millions I hid in the Caymans, it was just bad accounting." Never attribute to malice what could be described by stupidity is a stupid approach in situations where stupidity is likely done with malicious intent.
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It's not that I trust toads like SBF, it's just that the above is factually the case. See the linked article for more.
In this situation we have two untrustworthy sources (SBF and the cops) and we don't have enough information about this complex web of greedy people (including crypto bros generally) to sort it out ourselves. We do know the only people who have a
Re:FTX customers came out ahead, didn't they? (Score:5, Informative)
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They lost a lot of unrealized gains.
SBF, a real toad, isn't wrong to lay this at the cops' feet since they are the ones who set the valuation date.
But it's also true that this is a bit like Ponzi scheme insiders crying about not cashing out when they had the chance.
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But I consider anyone in this funhouse mirror of a roulette wheel called "crypto" to have about as much right to cry as someone at a real roulette wheel. Not even stocks, bonds, or commodities are as manipulated as this nonsense.
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I presently own a house that has theoretically tripled in value since I bought it. That's not real money until I sell it. I could borrow against that "market value", but I run a risk of being underwater if I sell it--if, say the appraiser had his head up his ass* and put a bad val
If investors got only their principal back out of an asset fund, they would be considered to have been made whol
I wonder who he pissed off so much (Score:3)
All I can figure is that one of the dumber billionaires, and they're all pretty stupid, gave him a ton of money and lost it. Like how Bernie Madoff and Elizabeth Holmes or both rotting in prison because they ripped off people that actually matter.
I will add that Trump is the worse thing (Score:1)
That happened to the universe since Noah flooding. Because of the Donald. His crazy tariff policies have already precipitated the whole world into the abyss. It's very very very unfair for China and now everybody rightfully hates America like everybody should be.
Trump's goal here along with the tariffs is to create a national sales tax so that he can eliminate his tax burden and the tax burden of his buddies. As a percentage is still much much much less than you pay but because they have about 60% of all th
They gave him 25 years for making.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I believe that there's a constitutional argument that SBF's sentence is cruel and unusual in a world where CZ gets 4 months.
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Instead he acts like he can talk his way out of anything.
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In this scenario, SBF is a the victim of a massive influence peddling scheme. It's just like Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. When you make powerful people look like morons, you go to jail. That's cruel and unusual. SBF was sentenced to 25 years so that Sequoi
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Our government prosecuted two crypto crooks, one of them stole money from rich people and the other one worked for terrorists. The one who worked with terrorists is a free man and the one who stole from a cartel of predatory financial institutions is in jail for 25 years. That's an indefensible fact patt
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I'm sorry but
You're not sorry, that's a lie. So you're a liar.
SBF was sentenced to 25 years so that Sequoia could tell their insurers that they were swindled by a master criminal
No, he was sentenced to 25 years by a judge.
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I believe that there's a constitutional argument that SBF's sentence is cruel and unusual in a world where CZ gets 4 months.
I wouldn't try that line of logic as it will tear down our entire "justice" system. "All I stole was $375k and I am in prison for the rest of my life. Those guys stole billions and are out in less than a year."
Oh right, different castes, different rules, different evaluations of what "fair" means. Carry on.
More like (Score:2)
More like "convicted former cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fraud."
Skill issue (Score:2, Informative)