Do you realize that those 19 murders likely carried 19 consecutive life sentences as a maximum sentence?

However, all of the expert opinion I have seen on this suggests that there will be no jail time.

But presumably there will be at least some effort to secure a substantial downward departure from the guidelines sentence.

SBF even if he gets a huge sentence will just get eventually pardoned after 6-10 years. Again, soft slush money.

According to you? Because “trust me bro”? What are basing this on?

- they go visit the Saudi rulers. Yes, the most powerful political leader goes TO SAUDI ARABIA to kiss ass. Why?

- they begin planning/fundraising for a "presidential library"

- they plan their "offices", often with donations

- they have the power to pardon people with no restriction

- ye old speech circuit

- in a similar vein, the Trump inauguration exposed the various inauguration slush funds used by presidents over the years when they get elected.

In case you don't get it, all of this involves slush money and backchannels and the like. Granted the pardon power is more visible than most since Clinton pardoned a lot of white collar stuff: https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardons-granted-president-wil... particularly Marc Rich.

And the old game of announced sentences vs the actual amounts served is often hilarious.

Between "good behavior", connections to get in lower security facilities, reduction on appeal, and of course there are tricks like only having to show up to actual prison months after sentencing (Elizabeth Holmes took 5 months before actually having to report to prison).

Yeah the feds don't do as lenient good behavior, but you can still get 54 days credit per year served.

There's other tricks. SBF might be able to help recover funds if he cooperates after conviction, and that can lead to prison being delayed further.

So sure it seems like SBF is getting his comeuppance, and he's way too famous for reductions, but the news cycle is remarkably fast, and the public will forget about him in a year or two.

Kenneth Lay allegedly died of a heart attack before going to prison. Now, I would like to assume that was above board, but based on a couple of my relatives dying, death is a bunch of forms and a cremation of ... some body.

Well, it was a very big fraud.

If the median prison sentence for nonviolent theft of a $30,000 car is 2 years, why shouldn't the prison sentence for stealing $3 billion be 200,000 years?

https://www.youtube.com/@officialsammythebull

Good - she was SBF's girlfriend and was told what to do by him.

Bad - her dad, an MIT economist worked with Gary Gensler, head of the SEC. They probably have connections

I would agree with you that it's a good reason if there were evidence of the coercion. I don't think we can assume it outright.

what does any of that mean?

* She and a few other people were in relationships with SBF and/or each other at the time. A polycule is generally a connected graph of n > 2 people (the nodes) in romantic/sexual relationships (the edges).

* The kimchi arbitrage was a trade where you bought BTC for USD somewhere other than Korea, transferred them from the non-Korean exchange to a private wallet, then sold those BTC for Won in Korea, and then sold those Won for USD (and repeat the cycle). It worked because Korea had strict capital controls for its citizens that meant that the price of bitcoins on native exchanges was substantially higher than outside. It also carried tremendous risk because you had to wait for those bitcoins to settle in your private wallet at each cycle, effectively exposing you to risk associated with fluctuations in the bitcoin price.

Physical movement in and out of South Korea is part of the Kimchi arbitrage, so you have to "run off" to do it.

Is this a real thing, or just a finance joke I just don't understand?

I love a good arbitrage technique, but this one really just reads like an excuse to go to South Korea with your friends (or your polycule).

The risk that you end up getting banned from entering Korea for doing this trade too much was real, but I don't think anyone who tried this trade faced any of the possible consequences.