[slapshot]

The SEC only has authority to levy civil fines. They issue a fine, and then hand the case over to the US Attorney's Office (and often state attorney generals' offices), which then build a criminal case.

Stay tuned. This may not be over yet.

(A good comparison is the Fyre Festival, which led to both civil and criminal charges: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fyre-festival-founder-billy-mcf... . )

Edit: Theranos was another where the SEC acted first, then the criminal case came next. https://www.vox.com/2018/6/15/17469332/theranos-elizabeth-ho...

[paulddraper]

And other times criminal charges comes first.

For example, SEC investigated Bernie Madoff multiple times, but the it was the FBI that decided to act, based on a criminal complaint.

Sentence: 150 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff

[jhabdas]

In this case should one be allowed to request a death penalty? Wouldn't 150 years in jail be considered cruel and unusual punishment?

[lmm]

> should one be allowed to request a death penalty?

If prison conditions are bad enough for someone to even consider that, that's a damning indictment of the prison system.

> Wouldn't 150 years in jail be considered cruel and unusual punishment?

Certainly not unusual, and jail doesn't seem inherently cruel, if we believe some people are enough of a danger to society that they need to be kept out of it. (Of course some particular jails might be cruel).

(I'm using the British English meaning of "jail"; I'm aware that in US English the term has a technical meaning)

[leetcrew]

> If prison conditions are bad enough for someone to even consider that, that's a damning indictment of the prison system.

really? a cage is still a cage, no matter how nice. i'm not thirty yet; to live out more than half of my life in confinement, with no hope of release, sounds like a fate worse than death to me. if i were near the end of my life already and had a family, it might be a different calculation.