Sam Bankman-Fried wants only six years for his "victimless" crime
www.citationneeded.news
Sam Bankman-Fried maintains that his crimes were victimless and resulted in zero losses, and therefore warrant only six years of imprisonment. Prosecutors argue that 40–50 years are justified.

For thursday’s sentencing the us government indicated they would be happy with a 40-50 prison sentence, and in the list of reasons they cite there’s this gem:

  1. Bankman-Fried’s effective altruism and own statements about risk suggest he would be likely to commit another fraud if he determined it had high enough “expected value”. They point to Caroline Ellison’s testimony in which she said that Bankman-Fried had expressed to her that he would “be happy to flip a coin, if it came up tails and the world was destroyed, as long as if it came up heads the world would be like more than twice as good”. They also point to Bankman-Fried’s “own ‘calculations’” described in his sentencing memo, in which he says his life now has negative expected value. “Such a calculus will inevitably lead him to trying again,” they write.

Turns out making it a point of pride that you have the morality of an anime villain does not endear you to prosecutors, who knew.

Bonus: SBF’s lawyers’ list of assertions for asking for a shorter sentence includes this hilarious bit reasoning:

They argue that Bankman-Fried would not reoffend, for reasons including that “he would sooner suffer than bring disrepute to any philanthropic movement.”

  • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
    16·
    8 months ago

    morality of an anime villain

    Plenty of anime villains would be insulted by this.

    IANAL: His defense team must truly suck ass. To let the prosecution build the case that he is essentially amoral and profit driven is just baffling. To let SBF speak in any capacity at all is more baffling. The only way they could bungle this further is if they asked for more time than the prosecution was asking for.

    • Architeuthis@awful.systemsOPEnglish
      21·
      8 months ago

      If I remember correctly SBF taking the stand was completely against his lawyers’ recommendations, and in general he seems to have a really hard time doing what people who know better tell him to, such as don’t DM journalists about your crimes and definitely don’t start a substack detailing how you felt justified in doing them, and also trying to ‘explain yourself’ to prosecution witnesses is witness tampering and will get your bail revoked.

    • David Gerard@awful.systemsMEnglish
      16·
      8 months ago

      There’s a limit to what anyone can achieve with this calibre of client. This is also his second defence team after the others refused to put up with his shit any more. He has a new, third defence team handling his appeal.