Sam Bankman-Fried fails to dismiss criminal charges related to FTX

https://www.ft.com/content/935ec2fc-ce52-424c-a615-a7d49c26c397

by Anon84 • 3 years ago

146 112 3 years ago

ft.com

Anon84• 3 years ago

https://archive.md/BtHKc

EA-3167• 3 years ago

A good lawyer always tries, but with SBF as a client you need a miracle worker, not an attorney.

NovaDudely• 3 years ago

My partner was once one jury duty, said it was the most boring case ever because both sides basically agreed. The client was bonkers and they just needed to determine the punishment. When the folks you hire to defend you realise it is a situation worse than Sisyphus, you are going to do time.

HWR_143• 3 years ago

If the case was "is this person insane", it's not basically agreeing at all.

tnecniv• 3 years ago

This is a fairly common scenario for defense attorneys.

I needed a lawyer for a misdemeanor charge (cop was having a bad day, the other cops that arrived on the scene seemed like they would have let me off with a warning but it was not their call). I was certainly guilty by the letter of the law and had no defense but the lawyer I was referred to from a friend of a friend negotiated with the prosecution and I plead guilty to a civil ordinance violation for disturbing the peace (basically a traffic ticket). He was able to do that because he knew what to bargain for based off of similar cases in my state.

However, if it doesn’t get worked out pre-trial, that negotiation process still happens in the court room. When I met my lawyer, he mentioned a recent case he handled where the defendant had committed murder. There was no question that he did it, but the lawyer was proud that he was able to convince the court that his defendant was not of sound mind, which was the difference between going untreated and spending twenty-to-life in a state prison or spending that time getting treatment in a mental ward. While the latter isn’t exactly a cushy place to be, it is certainly better than being mentally unstable in gen pop.

yodsanklai• 3 years ago

they just needed to determine the punishment

Well, this is a pretty big. You don't want to serve more time than what is required, this is why we have lawyers.

drexlspivey• 3 years ago

Michael Clayton : Mr. Greer, you left the scene of an accident on a slow week night, six miles from a state police barracks. Believe me. If there's a line, you're right up front.
Mr. Greer : I can get a lawyer any time I want. I don't need you for that. We're not sitting here for forty five minutes for a god damned referral.
Michael Clayton : I don't know what Walter promised you but...
Mr. Greer : A miracle worker. That's Walter on the phone twenty minutes ago. Direct quote, okay, "Hang tight, I'm sending you a miracle worker."
Michael Clayton : Well he misspoke.
Mr. Greer : About what? That you're the firms fixer? Or that you're any good at it?

[explodes in anger]

Mr. Greer : The guy was RUNNING. In the STREET! You take that, you add the fog, you add the light, you add the... the angle. What the fuck is he doing running in the middle of the street at midnight? You answer me that, huh?

[Mrs. Greer throws a glass across the room, there's a long pause]

Mr. Greer : What if someone had stolen the car? Huh? Happens all the time.
Michael Clayton : Cops like hit and runs. They work them hard and they clear them fast. Right now there's a DCI unit pulling paint chips off a guard rail. Tomorrow they're going to be looking for the owner of a custom painted hand rubbed Jaguar XJ12. If the guy you hit, if he got a look at the plates? It won't even take that long.

[the phone rings]

Michael Clayton : There's no play here. There's no angle. There's no champagne room. I'm not a miracle worker, I'm a janitor. The math on this is simple. The smaller the mess the easier it is for me to clean up.

LatteLazy2• 3 years ago

With him you need payment in advance...

sidewndr46• 3 years ago

I think I could bend time and space before I could get charges against SBF dismissed.

sebzim45002• 3 years ago

Honestly a presidential pardon is the only hope at this point. He's donated to democrats so there is precedent[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Rich

tibbydudeza• 3 years ago

He really needs a glove like OJ Simpson.

belter• 3 years ago

The miracle already started to happen, as he is not in prison, but enjoying the comforts of home. Also without being blocked from using a computer.

DonHopkins• 3 years ago

Or a brain surgeon who could give him a lobotomy so he could declare himself mentally incompetent to stand trial.

FreshStart• 3 years ago

He could represent himself like the president..

vkou3• 3 years ago

The judge's reasoning brings up an interesting fact about extradition.

1. SBF agreed (voluntarily!) to be extradited from the Bahamas to face ~X charges in the US.

2. After being extradited, he was charged with X + Y charges.

3. He claims that international extradition agreements make this illegal.

4. The judge ruled that, <citing precedent>, international extradition agreements allow the Bahamas to raise a complaint about this - but does not allow SBF to do so [1].

5. US prosecutors have expressed that they are willing to drop the Y charges if the Bahamas raises a complaint in a timely fashion.

6. The Bahamas are incredibly unlikely to raise a complaint on this point.

tl;dr - Expensive lawyers can force government prosecutors to dot all their is and cross their ts, but if they have you dead to rights, you're still screwed. SBF seems really, really screwed.

[1] These parts of extradition treaties are generally very explicitly about the rights of countries, not the rights of individuals.

babyshake• 3 years ago

1. SBF agreed to be extradited from the Bahamas to face ~X charges in the US.

Would it be more accurate to say that the Bahamas agreed to extradite SBF? If not, then it doesn't make sense why the Bahamas would need to complain about the additional charges instead of SBF if they weren't involved in the agreement.

Although FWIW SBF is the last person who should be complaining about having the rug pulled from under them.

LatteLazy2• 3 years ago

Not op but...

He agreed to be extradited voluntarily.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/19/business/sbf-extradition-baha...

danielfoster• 3 years ago

SBF agreed to waive his right to fight extradition from the Bahamas in Bahamian court. This let the Bahamas make an agreement to extradite him.

dreamcompiler• 3 years ago

SBF seems really, really screwed.

It still astonishes me how deluded he was by his own reality distortion field. He continued to incriminate himself repeatedly after it was clear to everybody else that he needed to stop digging the hole he was in.

Just breathtaking levels of PR and legal naivete.

coldtea2• 3 years ago

Of course. Those with good levels of PR, legal advice, and friends in power, can do worse and get a slap on the wrist.

golergka• 3 years ago

Yet one another person with 130 IQ who thinks he's 150 IQ.

crtified• 3 years ago

I'd be more surprised if he'd managed to reach that point without having operated under weight of great delusion.

For the delusion to continue beyond Ground Zero was a given, a fait accompli of self-confirmation bias.

DropInIn• 3 years ago

The big problem:

Mens Rea

AceJohnny2• 3 years ago

Not being sympathetic to SBF here, but that's quite the legal gotcha.

No wonder people don't trust the law/lawyers.

RandomBK2• 3 years ago

Why is it a gotcha? These kinds of treaties in general only care about the 'feelings' of nation-states, not individuals. The rule exists because countries often have some say in whether to extradite, and they make that decision based on known facts.

In this case, it's a statement from the US to the Bahamas about what they intend to do to SBF once he's in custody. If the US then goes on and punishes SBF even harder than what they originally told the Bahamas, the Bahamas might feel lied to. Think of it as a "we wouldn't have extradited if we knew he was facing the death penalty" kind of scenario. This rule thus exists to give the Bahamas a chance to remedy that.

mdasen• 3 years ago

It's not a legal gotcha.

"An extradition treaty between the United States and the Bahamas, where FTX was based, says a country must consent before defendants can be tried on charges brought after their extradition.

Prosecutors said they asked the Bahamas to agree to those charges, which include conspiracy to bribe Chinese officials and commit bank fraud, but did not know when the Caribbean country would grant its consent." via https://www.reuters.com/legal/bankman-fried-loses-bid-toss-c...

If he had contested the extradition, then the Bahamas would be deciding to extradite him on the old and the new charges. He decided to come back for the original charges and now the Bahamas decides whether they will allow the US to bring the new charges - basically whether they would have extradited him for those new charges.

The legal gotcha would be if he returned and then the Bahamas couldn't consent to them bringing additional charges - that they couldn't extradite him for the new charges. If I commit fraud and have a traffic violation, I can't voluntarily come back to the US for the traffic violation and then say "the Bahamas can't extradite me for the fraud charge because I voluntarily came back for traffic violation!" No, the Bahamas would then need to decide if they want to extradite me on the fraud charge. If they don't give consent for that charge, I'm only facing the traffic violation and then I can leave back for the Bahamas. If the Bahamas says "yea, we would have extradited him for the fraud charge so go for it," then they can charge me with the fraud as well.

DannyBee4• 3 years ago

It's pretty standard, even outside extradition.

Third party standing for rights is basically not a thing in the US, except in rare cases (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_standing)

Even in other realms, this is usually the case - it's very rare for a third party beneficiary to be able to raise rights that belong to someone else.

For example, Bob writes some software and releases it under the GPL. Evilco takes it and ships binaries of it. You get a binary. You ask them for source. They say GFY.

You are a third party beneficiary of Bob's contract with Evilco. Bob has the right to sue them in court. However, you probably do not have the right to sue them for breach of contract.

(There is nuance i'm avoiding here about to make the point).

freejazz• 3 years ago

really? you think that when extraditing an alleged criminal, we should ask the alleged criminal if they want to be extradited? That can't be right...

getmeinrn• 3 years ago

Makes sense to me, and if SBF was as smart as he thinks he is, he should have thought of this possibility. Why would an individual think they have any authority to enforce an extradition agreement made between two countries? Completely nuts.

dragonwriter• 3 years ago

Makes sense to me, and if SBF was as smart as he thinks he is, he should have thought of this possibility. Why would an individual think they have any authority to enforce an extradition agreement made between two countries?

This is not a crazy as you seem to think, and, in fact, if they cannot, this is a fairly recent (last 30-ish years) change in the state of the law. As the Supreme Court noted in U.S. v. Alvarez-Machain (1992), at that time, prosecution in violation of extradition agreement was invalid and the defendant absolutely could raise this issue independently. (A protest from the other government party may or may not, depending on the extradition agreement, be a factor in whether the prosecution is in violationof the agreement, but that’s a different and treaty-specific question, apart from whether or not an individual charged has the right to raise the invalidity of the prosecution under the treaty.)

polynomial• 3 years ago

Wait, this wasn't a lawyer misstep, this was some SBF: legal genius type sh*?

julianz• 3 years ago

Non-paywalled version from Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/legal/bankman-fried-loses-bid-toss-c...

top_sigrid• 3 years ago

Still has an ad-blocker blocker.

https://archive.md/BtHKc

m3kw9• 3 years ago

There was a bunch of clowns spreading misinfo 2 weeks ago saying they dropped majority of the charges.

Aeroi• 3 years ago

aka the besties

dfc2• 3 years ago

"Defendant fails to dismiss criminal charges"

That sounds incorrect to me but I am not a lawyer. Is that how losing a motion to dismiss is discussed?

Obscurity43402• 3 years ago

What do you expect it to say? The only other thing I can think of is saying he failed to dismiss the indictment, but "charges" isn't that far off from that.

Or is the present tense that's throwing you?

dfc2• 3 years ago

Defendants do not dismiss charges. The court dismisses the charges.

King-Aaron• 3 years ago

Try unlimited access
Only AU$1 for 4 weeks
Then AU$89 per month

Hoooly crap that's an expensive subscription!

zoklet-enjoyer2• 3 years ago

1.95 USD/day. It's like buying a paper a day

Edit: 69USD/month. I'd be better off using a VPN and getting the Aussie deal

moralestapia2• 3 years ago

More apples/oranges comparisons: it's also less than half of a $5 coffee, and a fraction of the cost of a new car!

tschwimmer• 3 years ago

It's geared towards businesses who can expense it.

dudus• 3 years ago

Why would business need the $1 deal?

currymj• 3 years ago

it’s essentially the only remaining good English language newspaper. they will never bullshit you.

RadixDLT• 3 years ago

bs story, ft try to make it seem like he's being charged, but quite the opposite is happening https://twitter.com/RetroCoast/status/1670605414377947138

don't forget that ft is a friend of bankman fried, and they will lie to protect this guy

OnlineGladiator• 3 years ago

Almost every response to that tweet is claiming it's false, and some are citing sources.

semiquaver• 3 years ago

Opinion: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.59...

Most of it is a dry discussion of why SBF’s motions to dismiss each count are meritless, but I found this bit interesting:

  > Second, the defendant argues that “the alleged conduct relevant to Counts Three and Four was predominantly foreign” and that the Commodity Exchange Act (“CEA”) cannot be applied to such extraterritorial conduct.
  > [...]
  > The indictment alleges that the defendant made false and misleading statements both in the United States and directed at U.S. customers.
  > [...]
  > Furthermore, the defendant allegedly made false and misleading statements on Twitter, a U.S.-based social media platform, including that FTX customer assets were “fine,” that FTX had “enough to cover all client holdings,” and that FTX did not “invest client assets (even in treasuries).”

Pretty interesting that the ownership of a website would establish US criminal jurisdiction over comments made there.

To be fair, the other reasons for denying this notion are that he also made fraudulent statements in Congressional testimony and Super Bowl ads (!) so the twitter part isn’t remotely necessary.

Cold_Miserable• 3 years ago

US justice system failing again nicely I see. The average man would be rotting in jail and slowly wasting away.

Sam Bankman-Fried fails to dismiss criminal charges related to FTX

Related Stories