No they don't. The very big difference is intent and actual behavior. Sarao was blatantly not following through on any of his spoofing, which is where the intent is derived based on pattern of behavior.

If a hedge fund behaved the exact same way, they'd get in trouble for it. That is, if Renaissance Technologies decided to do spoofing on 99.999% of its market action, they'd get in trouble for it. Hedge funds doing high frequency trading, is not the same as spoofing.