There are three reasons I think your post here is naive (maybe too combative here, sorry):
- politically, the smart thing to do is bury SBF. There's no upside to sparing him.
- throwing the book at him sends a message to all other would be scammers, again at no cost
- powerful people can be powerfully vindictive when you expose them to risk and embarrassment
I agree Democrats shouldn't have taken SBF money, or any crypto money. It's always been an obvious scam and it's incredibly bad for the planet. But I admit the facts are esoteric, and we really wanted to beat Trump, because he's also really bad for the planet (remember that one time he spent years weakening NATO and building up Putin, and then Putin invaded Ukraine and set the world economy on its head and threatened to starve/freeze hundreds of millions of people?) No good option here, is what I'm saying.
There's other ways to do that that don't involve exposing yourself to political and legal risk. You also don't want people to do what SBF did again; you want to incentivize an un-prosecutable (under current SCOTUS standards) quid pro quo, not become the beneficiary of an international financial scam bankrolling domestic political operations--that's the stuff of FBI/SEC/FEC investigations.
That's a dumb bet. The crimes he'd be on the hook for all have sentences that mostly hinge on 2B1.1(b), which scales sentences by the dollar amount of the crime. He'll easily be into double digit years just based on the dollar amounts involved here, if he's convicted.
He'll also be charged federally. There is no federal parole.
SBF is the largest donor to the Democratic Party this year and his mom runs an org that raises hundreds of millions for political bribes each year. I'm sure that won't be forgotten.
Elizabeth Holmes committed worse crimes and got a slap on the wrist--mostly because the was stealing from the elite. People are going to forget all about SBF and he'll get charged in a few years and get forgotten until he times some meager sentence and then re-emerges a few years later as the new Jordan Belfort, probably selling some new get rich quick scheme.
I'd disagree. Madoff was a token/scapegoat and Holmes got off easy. They both also took from the rich--which the rich don't like. SBF stole from small timers on the internet. He'll get charged in a few years when no one cares anymore and let off easy.
> I bet it’s less than 7 years total and probably serves less than 5.
Unless his sentence is commuted, its not possible for a 7 year federal sentence to result in release in 5; there is no federal parole, and good conduct time is limited to 54 days per year.
Personally I don't think so. Elizabeth Holmes actions could have killed people who were making health decisions based on totally fake results. SBF stole money people were gambling/speculating with. Both are bad, but only one of these could have directly led to the deaths of their customers.
If he stays in the Bahamas, probably not if this high profile case is anything to go by.