Salame was the only criminally-charged executive [0] to not testify against SBF. Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang, and Nishad Singh all testified in the trial as part of their plea deals and are still awaiting sentencing. Will be interesting to see how their prison time compares with Salame's

[0] https://apnews.com/article/ftx-sam-bankman-fried-ryan-salame...

I was wondering why he got so "much" time, but if he didn't testify that makes sense.

I couldn't remember the list of testifiers.

I don’t see any mention in the link that says he surrendered $1.5 billion. Where did you see that?

I Googled with this phrase to find multiple reputable sources:

    > salame ftx forfeit over $1.5 billion

And who is the direct beneficiary of the 1.5 billon forefeiture?

Typically when people forfeit assets in a fraud case that results in a bankruptcy those assets go into the bankruptcy and are used by the trustees to try to make the victims whole. For example, there is a detailed coverage here https://assetforfeiturelaw.us/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Cha...

> all his assets

If they were earned through fraud then they were never really his in the first place.

I would expect these people to be smart enough to have put a few $million into monero and memorized the seed.

Me too

But they also did some really dumb delusional things, at least SBF seemed to actually get high on his own supply

I’m sure there was a smartest man or person in the room like with Enron and we’ll find out in a movie half a decade later

I do wonder about how he could have hidden assets in advance. Not that you should, but it’s a fun thought experiment.

Almost eight years is a long time to hold onto a phrase in memory. You would want to repeat it to yourself every day, and not aloud. You would probably want to make sure someone who really cared about you had a copy.

On the other side, that is also a long time for crypto. If your chosen currency crashes or evaporates in the meantime, what was the point over stashing it somewhere in cash or some other liquid or easily liquidated collateral?

Perhaps “buying your mom” a load of extremely valuable jewelry that for some reason is still in the box and lives in the basement would be another gamble without as much risk.

“Good things come to those who wait.”

s/earned/obtained/

If SBF had pleaded out and collaborated with investigators instead of taking the trial option, it's very possible he could have walked away with much less time. An extra 15 years for insisting on his innocence seems reasonable.

They call it the trial tax. Sure you have a constitutional right to it, but they are going to unconstitutionally punish you for exercising it. You should just waive your rights. Funniest part is they actually have to say in court when you take a plea that you weren't coerced into a plea, even though everyone knows and just pretends that the trial tax isnt coercion. The system is based on lieing under oath and the pressuring people to give up their rights.

The original idea of course is that it frees up valuable court time and court resources. A defendant with little chance of success in court is incentivised to avoid a vexatious trial and go straight to sentencing.

How rational are the economics? How much did the trial cost the taxpayer compared to how much is it going to cost to provide food, accommodation, recreation facilities, and round-the-clock security to someone for 25 years?

Bureau of Prisons suggests the incarceration will cost $1m ($40k * 25y): https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-03/bop_se_fy_2024_pb_narrati...

That feels like an unusually long sentence but it was also an unusually long trial — 23 calendar days by my count, or one day per year of sentence, so maybe the trial costs versus prison cost match up if lesser crimes have shorter trials and shorter sentences.

Ah yes, efficiency is the ultimate goal, right comrade? What is a little state threatened violence (there is no way to say that 10s of years of forcible incarceration is not a threat of violence, there is no way to say that an increased security classification due to sentence length, and therefor incarceration at a much more violent prison, is not a threat of violence) for the waiver of 2 little rights (plea's include a waiver of the right to a trial and the right to an appeal)? Imagine the efficiency if we could allow the state to use violence to get 'citizens' to volunteer to waive their right to remain silent? So much efficiency comrade. It's not like Constitutional rights are important part of this country, we should treat them like China treats the ones enshrined in the Chinese constitution, just look how efficient that makes China, right comrade?

Can you point to the bit of the US constitution that says it's illegal for sentencing to consider questions of remorse and admission of guilt as factors?

Edit: In a plea, a judge isn't reducing your sentence for contrition. It is the Prosecutor that is lowering the sentence they are asking the court for. The judge reducing your sentence at sentencing happens much later and is seperate from the plea agreement which is the part where the trial tax is introduced because yes, there is a constitutional process for sentencing and the judge definitely would not be allowed as large of variances during sentencing as prosecutors introduce with plea agreements.

So let's take your right to remain silent. You are SPECIFICALLY protected from exercising that right being used against you to assume guilt/impact the process. But with your right to a trial, somehow it is totally OK for the government to punish you for exercising your right. Twist it all you want. We don't punish people for exercising their right to remain silent. You should not be punished for exercising your rights.

Again, the court is REQUIRED to ask and you are REQUIRED to attest during a plea that you weren't coerced, even though everyone in the room knows you were threatened with the trial tax (often times in the tens of years of addition time in prison, which also brings your security classification up because classification is partly based on sentence length, meaning you will also then go to much rougher prisons), yet everyone just lets the entire process be one big lie.

So the process you promote 1. Takes away rights (you can't be said to truly have a right if the government can, at their whim, punish you for using it with tens of years in prison and with being sent to a much rougher prison). 2. Subverts the courts mechanisms to ensure fairness in that it turns the entire 'must ensure there wasn't coercion of a plea' into a giant lie by omission with everyone pretending they don't see it.

I understand that wasn't on offer. He would have walked away with a bit less time, maybe.