In under five hours! The jury was home in time for dinner.
One question for legal people—why is there such a long gap between conviction and sentencing? In this case, the sentence won't be set until March of next year.
Because there's essentially a whole second sentencing trial. After the verdict, the Parole Office prepares a Presentence Report (I'm not sure if these are public? I'm always looking for them and never finding them on PACER†), the "PSR", which is like the opening bid for the recommended offense levels and grouping. The prosecution and defense then respond to the PSR with exculpatory, mitigating, or aggravating claims, victim impact testimony, your scout leader when you made Eagle Scout, all that stuff. Only then does the judge work out what the actual sentence is.
The guidelines calculations, contrary to public belief, are pretty easy! You will have a pretty good success rate just carefully reading the charged statutes in the indictment and then following the instructions in the guidelines. But the PSR, prosecution, and defense filings all take a bunch of time, and involve "reporting" or "research" or whatever you'd want to call it.
That process ostensibly can't even start until everyone knows what the precise convictions were.
For what it's worth, I think there's a very good chance he just gets the statutory maximum penalties here, because the dollar loss and victim count numbers max out the 2B1.1 guidelines (which, for instance, cap out at $10MM in dollar losses). Attributing specific dollar losses and victim counts is ostensibly one of the things that makes sentencing take so long, but as long as it takes I think the outcome is a foregone conclusion.
† Later: they're definitely not public; there's a whole victims rights thing about getting victims partial access to PSRs so they can be heard in the sentencing process. I guess I can stop looking for them.
A guy named Lev Dermen just got 40 years with a guidelines score of 47 (the table doesn't even go that high). He was charged with defrauding the government out of half a billion dollars in biodiesel tax credits, went to trial and kind of like SBF all the other conspirators testified against him. That case also had destruction of evidence, witness intimidation, and at the time of sentencing the government was still trying to recover a Bugatti and a bunch of money in Turkey from him.
But the number of victims and the hardship element probably means he's looking at life.
* +30 for dollar loss, which caps out at $550MM, against CFTC's estimate of $8Bn
* +6 for 25+ victims, another cap
* +2 for financial misrepresentations, maybe, depending on how bankruptcy fits in
* +2 for either sophisticated means or deliberate use of foreign jurisdictions (the same clause, one of those predicates is definitely going to hit)
* +4 for jeopardizing (or, in this case, destroying) a financial institution --- at a minimum, +2 (same clause) for >$1MM gross receipts
* +4 for his function as the leader in the crime
* +2 for obstruction, maybe
* +1-2 for grouping/combined offense level, depending on how the conspiracy, wire fraud, and campaign finance stuff groups out.
So that's low-to-high 50s as an offense level. 43 is straight life. But there's probably a statutory maximum in the mix here that takes life off the table somehow.
Later: I miskeyed the 2B1.1b1 cap, as 10MM (the bottom of the page); it's 550MM (on the next page). Doesn't change the analysis much, which is why SBF is so fucked.
I was hunting around for an easy way to do this kind of math, and found https://www.sentencing.us/ . I haven't done an amazingly deep validation, but the math lines up with the above, and thankfully SBF has done a pretty good job stress testing the various clauses, so I'm going to be bookmarking it for the future.
Once you get to a 43 offense level, the guidelines sentence (its not really a range at that point), irrespective of criminal history category (guidelines sentence ranges are a result of a table cross-referencing offense level and criminal history category) is straight life.
If you do it in the order in the guidelines manual, the dollar loss is the first figure after the base offense for the offenses to which it applies, so (with a base of 7 for the wire fraud charge), you'd get to 37 with it alone. But if the tool does it in a different order, putting some of the other factors first, or you work a different charge first and its applying the grouping rules as you go, it would be very easy to hit 43 for SBF at the +30 for the dollar loss, and so get pegged to "life".
The actual aggregate statutory maximum for the offenses he's been convicted of (115 years) will limit the actual sentence though.
Yeah! It just didn't seem at the time like it was true, like maybe they linearly projected out the dollars or something. But no, from the guidelines doc, it looks very grim indeed for SBF.
It also makes the time gap between now and sentencing feel a bit performative. It doesn't make a ton of difference either way since he's managed to land himself in custody with the witness tampering antics, but it does mean that there's not much point in his lawyers quibbling over things like "how does the bankruptcy fit in" and "does blowing up your own company count as destroying a financial insitution, or is that intended for when you topple the victim of your crime", because even if we nix both those modifiers it just shifts him from "life plus cancer" to "life".
I'm a little confused by this, 47 is higher than 43, and 40 years is less than life... it also looks like Lev maxed the dollar loss or came really close, so how come you're sure SBF gets life while this Lev guy got a higher score and only got 40 years?
That's not so much going to be an issue in this case. But a lot of the time, especially in federal white collar cases, the defendant isn't in custody during sentencing anyways.
I believe so, because he was an idiot during the trial and violated his home confinement conditions.
But his sentence is going to be so long that there isn't going to be any injustice at play for him to be in confinement for a few months while they work the numbers out. He's not getting out in a year or two.
Yes. He was out on bail, but that was revoked for witness tampering ahead of the trial.
I doubt he'll get out before sentencing, he's looking at up to life in prison so in addition to having a demonstrated history of ignoring his release conditions he'll also be a huge flight risk.
Having been called upon to serve on a jury before, I will admit that I tend to err on the side of the accused, but here the guy did everything, often in his own words, to tank any reasonable defense and doubt one could have. I followed the case and shook with disbelief at some of the things that were said. I was amazed at the initially lenient treatment he got. My jaw landed on the floor when I saw python code that did not even try to hide randomized balance. And those are just the highlights off the top of my head.
It is not often that I get to say this lately, but the jury restored some of my tired faith in the system in US.
Allegedly. There’s no evidence to back this claim other than the guards were on break when he died. If I were to plan my demise in jail, I’d wait for the guards to go on break as well. Less chance of them finding you before you’re gone.
His client list is quite well known. So far as I know, and in spite of the evidence, no one on it has ever been questioned - apart from Prince Andrew, and that was the result of a civil case.
With Epstein dead there's no reason why anyone would be. Any former "party friends" can always be paid off, or discouraged in less subtle ways.
The more interesting question is - who replaced Epstein?
I was on the jury of a federal fraud trial with 2 defendants with 15 charges, ~30 million in losses.
We were thorough and went through each count separately, including reviewing some of the evidence, and were done in maybe 8 hours spread across 2 days.
We ended up with a mixed verdict: one count not guilty for both, another not guilty for one. I fully believe they were aware and committed fraud for the not guilty counts, but the prosecutor wasn’t able to cross the “reasonable doubt” threshold in our minds for those specific instances.
Only thing we weren’t super careful about was the first requirement for Mail/Wire fraud, which is “Mail and wires” were used.
It was amusing that the prosecutors brought in a bank IT guy to explain that “the internet uses wires”, but not really something we questioned.
And are modern fiber optic cables wires in any sense of the word? Does the relevant statute in USC18 actually define "wire" for the purpose of the crime?
Part of me thinks that wireless communications must be included, but one might make the case that even then, information/communication is transmitted over wire at some point.
"having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice"
UPDATE: Various court decisions have expanded the interpretation so that "wire fraud" also involves the use of the internet, phone calls, emails, social media messages, faxes, telegrams, fiber optic, cable or SMS messaging and data systems.
I am not a lawyer, though. I could be mistaken on this.
“So, contrary to popular belief, the internet is not some big truck that you can just dump something on a la Ted Stevens; it’s more of a … series of tubes?”
There’s quite a bit that goes into sentencing hearings especially if there are a lot of victims and/or the defendant has a lot of money. All that takes time to line up.
There's no realistic grounds for appeal, probably not even in a country with a more lenient system for appealing criminal convictions. In America, forget it.
I think parent has a point - I'd love to know if he can potentially buy more time out of jail by forcing an appeal, then requesting bail in the interim, even if it is expected to lose the appeal or is downright dismissed.
It sounds like its plausible, but i'd like to know for a fact
I think what TillE was talking about wasn't the likelihood of a successful appeal, but whether or not he'll stay in prison until the appeal is completed.
I wonder how posting bond works post-conviction (pre-appeal). As in sourcing of funds, as now you're in a limbo of reasonable doubt about how you made your money (and in this case, his parents also shared in the largesse).
They'll also figure in how likely they think he is to skip out and flee the country or something. He very likely has the money to do it stashed away somewhere, so the question is would he be willing to?
I don't know how that would play out, but he isn't exactly looking good, character-wise.
To me, probably. He exhibits much of the same traits as Elizabeth Holmes in terms of perspective on his own intelligence and entitlement.
She surrendered her passport, without mentioning she had or had access to another one, and was caught planning to leave for Mexico with a one way ticket and no accommodation booked, and then tried to claim it was "for a friend's destination wedding" (which shouldn't even have mattered - the surrender of the passport meant she was forbidden from leaving the country, regardless the reason).
That's hilarious considering neither Mexico nor US checks passports when you walk into Mexico in CA/az west except maybe San Ysidro crossing. She literally could have walked across and nobody would know, instead she did the dumbest thing possible of buying a one way last minute air ticket on a flagged passport. That would have triggered some cursory check for anybody let alone Holmes.
We were done in 30 minutes for a DUI case in local county court the last time I served. 25 of those minutes were spent trying to find any reasonable doubt after we all agreed on guilt.
Is the lunch nice? Do you get paid as well? What kind of hotels are you all kept in? Is it like in those Hollywood films? How common are things like jury tempering? Do you all have sufficient protection?
I served on a jury fairly recently, and it was a much more mundane thing than anything you'd see in a Hollywood film. Whole thing took 10 hours start to finish. Got picked from the pool, had the case presented by the prosecutor, heard witness testimony, the defense attorney made his case mostly by questioning the prosecution's witnesses, closing statements, deliberated very briefly (it was not a complex case) and delivered the verdict and went home. We were paid about $40 for the day plus travel mileage, and lunch was ordered off a menu and delivered to our deliberation room, presumably from the courthouse cafeteria. The food was actually pretty good.
The high-profile cases like SBF's are a tiny fraction of jury trials in the US, most trials have no significant risk of jury tampering and the jury is not sequestered, meaning that if we had needed more time for deliberation, we would have just gone home for the evening and shown up at the courthouse the next day. We did have our phones collected at the start of the day and returned at the end, which seemed like a reasonable precaution against both "independent research" and distractions/interruptions, and would have also made jury tampering somewhat more difficult if anyone was so inclined.
You were in the jury pool for a week. You could serve on multiple cases if they were short enough. If you were picked for a case and it went on over a week you got paid. Some trials require a hotel stay but the chances of getting on one is rare.
The lunches were sandwiches from the vending machine. Two choice ham and without meat. They were good I can taste the salt on the ham as I write this.
The conversations within the jury are like tv. Immediately you have a few who think anyone on trial is guilty. You have a smaller group who want to find reasons they may not. At some point someone will accuse that group of being part of the criminal conspiracy. Friends and enemies are formed. Promises and deals were made but all disappears after the verdict (someone offered me a job and ghosted later).
Protections? I had a job offer to start that week that I lost because I couldn't start. No police protections.
The actual trial is very boring. Police reading notes. Long winded questions without any tv drama.
Oh yeah, I watched an episode or two of that. Of course, it's not actual jury duty — it's all fake. I assumed that food was provided because that keeps them all together, for filming purposes. When I served, people split up at lunchtime and went to various different restaurants.
Yea I think it depends on which county you're in and the case as well. These guys had their hotels paid for by the end of it because they had to be sequestered.
> Kind of scary that this is the rigor our justice system hinges on.
That’s not the scary part.
The scary and eye opening part is that an obviously frivolous lawsuit against can bankrupt you.
There is a YouTuber with h3h3 productions and he got hit with a lawsuit and it cost them USD 50k + USD 170k, at least. Maybe chump change if you’re a billionaire but I’d lose by default if you were to sue me.
Yeah I remember one of Sam's lawyers insisted he stay in the Bahamas and fight extradition if he was to have any chance of staying out of jail and the other lawyer said he should do the opposite and accept extradition.
Given how harsh the US is on financial crimes, I always thought the former opinion was smarter. Nick Leeson only got sentenced to 6 1/2 years in Singapore (and served 4). Or, alternatively, most stats show higher levels of corruption he could've finessed in his favor in the Bahamas.
As soon as he arrived on US soil it was over for him IMO.
He also did a media tour after things blew up instead of just shutting up, which from what I gathered isn't the best idea for staying out of jail. Real overconfidence in his charisma?
The fact that he did this instead of executing a planned escape and going to hangout with Ruja Ignatova is the main reason for me to think he believed his own shit.
Leaked his ex-gf's private diaries in an attempt to intimidate her.
Decided to testify at his own trial.
I'm almost certain that he thought he would give a grand speech and all the jurors would instantly take his side, just like he had experienced with VCs, journalists, employees and other sycophants for the past decade.
Extradition treaties aren’t the only thing to watch out for. Plenty of countries without them will happily fall over and hand someone wanted over.
Extradition treaty mainly just lets some foreign country start a process in local courts to hand someone over.
You need to butter up a place with adversarial relations.
Or go somewhere with ironclad constitutional protections against extradition. And even then, e.g. France only has those for its own citizens and may still prosecute you locally for your crimes abroad.
Why would they need go to a country subject to treaties. Unrecognized territories like transnistria (weev!),rojava,Somaliland,Ambazonia, western Sahara, Palestine (before invasion), fractions of Myanmar, idlib, rebel held congo fractions, etc. Basically no diplomatic relations and they will likely not eject someone seen locally as supporting their cause.
Its a big world out there and a shockingly large portion is free of recognized government control. In such places you pretty much live by your own bootstraps rather than what some far away western country says, at least on the individual level.
What really really shocks me though is that SBF didn't just jump on a yacht out right after the failure as he easily could have done. If he had sailed to the right part of Latam or West Africa he'd have a decent chance at not getting caught.
He doesn't speak the language, had a highly recognizable face and is perceived to have money. Sounds like a recipe for a bad time in the rougher places of the world.
Not sure I'd want to live in Ambazonia but they speak English and would likely not have many that recognize his face. It also would have been easily accessible by yacht transatlantic from the Bahamas into a difficult to patrol estuary. But this is all pure fantasy, I understand why he didn't do that.
In any unrecognized territory, you risk becoming a pawn in exchange for a prisoner release. And pray that the unrecognized territory continues to exist as is.
There's no riskless path remaining after you've defrauded billions of dollars. Iirc the white girl who bombed the subway in london is thought to be still hiding in such a territory like two decades later.
The right place to go in this case is probably the sort of place that will take your money and not extradite you. I heard the United Arab Emirates helps. Maybe Hong-Kong?
In most cases this is true, Israel rarely extradites jews and generally the US doesn't try too hard in forcing exceptions (like tying aid to extradition of accused), but this was way too high profile, and SBFs politics in general don't align with Israel's, so I could see Israel not working out for him.
One question for legal people—why is there such a long gap between conviction and sentencing? In this case, the sentence won't be set until March of next year.