It's amazing what a small amount of bail (200k and 500k) the two individuals put up relative to the supposed $250 million bail.
The value of course to court is that these two people would help ensure that SBF doesn't vanish, but given that the two individuals are likely very rich I'm not sure how true that is.
What does it even mean that bail is set at 250mio if he gets free on 700k? I don't understand what's the point of setting bail that high and then ignoring it.
Right -- together, they put 3.5% at risk, not 0.28%. [1] A huge distinction to make!
Well ... not really. It still seems like a farce. Either lower the bail amount, or require meaningful proof that the guarantors have access to anywhere near the ostensible figure.
"Your bail is $X, but we'll set requirements that completely ignore $X" seems comedic at best, or special treatment at worst.
(I know, the courts will "come after" the guarantors for the full $250M. It's still irrelevant to the on-the-ground reality.)
[1] 700/250000 = 0.28% . Actual is 700 + 700? (from anons) + 4000 (house) = 8800/250000 = 3.5%.
But doesn’t this mean that the people that co-signed his bail have basically risked their entire net worth on an unsecured basis? Unless they are billionaires, this seems like a pretty compelling amount to be at risk for people…
A bail bond is like a mortgage where the money down up front grants you access to the full loan amount. $700k down for a loan on $250m sounds like a pretty sweet deal, so I would assume the parties involved are reputable people and all parties think there is a high likelyhood Sam will show up to trial.
You can't attack other users like this, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. We ban accounts that do it, so please don't do it again. Your comment would be fine without that bit.
Why go out of you way just to be rude? There was already another comment that helped me learn this detail. I don't have time to follow news like this so closely, so sorry I answered a generic "why don't people have to pay their full bail?". I guess it created some noise in a thread but somebody had already corrected me, all you're adding is vitriol. Hope it made you feel good because all it did was make me regret coming to HN.
That is totally fair, but it's worth noting that this exact topic has been beaten to depth multiple times on HN over the past weeks/months. That's probably why you get some gruff replies at this point.
But it's also fair to note that you weren't asking a question, you were claiming to know the answer, but were wrong. That also gets gruff replies ;-).
I know, but people need to stick to the rules (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) regardless of how wrong another comment is or they feel it is. The thing to remember is that even if you don't feel like you owe better to the wrong comment, you owe this community better if you're participating in it.
(I don't mean you personally, of course; I mean all of us here.)
Why go out of your way to lazily invent obviously false details about bail? You can just say "I don't know," or nothing, or ask further questions. Curiosity and naivety is fine. Making things up is obnoxious. There has been a ton of the exact same kind of lazy thinking on these SBF bail threads, and it's tiring. I apologize for the gruff response.
I admittedly don't understand the bail process that well and now realize I understand it even less than I thought I did after this case. At some point I may read into it, hopefully I never need to, but none the less one would unknowingly assume when a bail amount it set, that's what should be covered, at least I did.
Yes but just because they only put up that amount, don’t they have to guarantee the rest against assets? Not saying the amount isn’t soft, I think you are right, but just pointing that asset guarantee out.
As far as I understand what they essentially said is "We'll pay $X if SBF doesn't show up to court" (where X is $200k or $500k)
To the best of my knowledge they haven't paid anything yet.
Bail bonds are when you have a company make that promise for you at the cost of you paying 10% of the bond. If you show up to court the bail bondsman makes 10% of the bond and if you don't they have to pay the whole bond amount. There's also a system of bounty hunters that somehow happens if you don't show up, but I don't know how that works.
If you can post bail yourself, you don't actually lose any money assuming you show up to court.
The guy has a supernatural ability to get people to accept insane financial arrangements. They need to bind his mouth or something. Have everyone plug their ears during his testimony, and tie down the court stenographer like Odysseus.
It's honestly very hard to believe what he continues to get away with. How can this guy be this persuasive? I've even heard him talk for hours, and yeah he's good at talking and sounding persuasive, but not that good. On the other hand, I can't argue with the results.
There was a villain in Get Smart who had a way of making everybody love him if they looked in his eyes. It's almost as if something like that is going on.
> 0.28% of the bail amount is all that was needed to be put up
Posted. It’s all “put up.”
Most people don’t have $250mm in cash, but quite a few have that much in assets. The court does better ring-fencing them than forcing a fire sale or jailing SBF with fewer strings to pull.
> Most people don’t have $250mm in cash, but quite a few have that much in assets. The court does better ring-fencing them than forcing a fire sale or jailing SBF with fewer strings to pull.
Well, yes, but no one involved has posted or claimed to have $250M in assets, either.
Sorry, where are you getting that the anonymous parties have (or claim to have) $250M in assets? I don't see that attested to in the documents[2] or reported in reliable explanations of the bail arrangement[1]. I don't even see where the anons are under the already-lenient requirements that the parents are, who also don't have to show $250M in assets.
From [1]:
>>Two non-parent sureties have to sign the bond, pledging amounts approved by the government, by January 5. That means Bankman-Fried must find two non-parent supporters with substantial assets to agree to sign off on the bond and be responsible for up to a specified amount (likely in the hundreds of thousands) if he breaks the terms of the bond.
Those parties might not even be liable for the full $250M, let alone have current access to that much.
So who posted the bulk of the $250 million then? Is it these two people being talked about, SBF himself, or something else? Who stands to lose $250 million here if SBF runs, and where will that money come from?
Usually at the state level, one needs to put 10 percent of the bail amount for bail bonds. At the federal level, judge has more discretion on how much one should put.
When you're angry at a group of people it helps to think of whether this issue happens in other places and if not then consider that it might be a systemic problem and that you should be angrier at the systems that led to this problem.
My bike got stolen recently. I was pretty bummed out about it. But I think whoever stole it was probably more happy to get it than I am sad to lose it. The total happiness in the world increased. So, whatever.
dheera lost $5000 of their property and the nut I responded to is telling dheera to have more empathy for the thief. There is something seriously wrong with you when you've lost the ability to empathize with the victims of crime but retained the ability to empathize with the perpetrators.
My problems are the same ones that the entire middle class in the Bay Area faces.
I'm saying they should at list take a shit about something that's affecting the largest chunk of the population, instead of just dropping cases and not even going out to catch the serial thieves. Even more so, the people running around punching elderly Asian women. In fact, go after those first. My problem is a distant second.
Instead, they focus on the world of a few individuals who didn't really need their money anyway.
The value of course to court is that these two people would help ensure that SBF doesn't vanish, but given that the two individuals are likely very rich I'm not sure how true that is.