SBF's dad "worked" for the company getting paid a million dollars a year, both parents received several gifts of expensive of real estate, and were responsible for directing where political campaign contributions (taken from customer money) were going. They were almost certainly aware and complicit with the crimes he committed, and profited hugely off them.
Basically anyone who profited off SBF giving them cash or a position in the company is liable. The issue is it’s too easy to take this too far and start suing everyone at the company that profited at all. One could make a case that the parents knew, colluded with, and championed his actions. That would be the only avenue in this case.
Maybe not too fast (or at all) for SBF though. His father is a Stanford Law professor and that doesn't come without some connection to the rest of the legal world-- and so, assuming SBF is likely to have some method of funding, a flavor of defense along these lines could keep him out of jail:
"SBF was simply an idealistic young man who tried to strike out in a new direction in the financial world. But he'd only had a year or two of experience and found himself in a crypto industry filled with scammers and VC forms eager with FOMO failed to provide the guidance or ensure proper governance as would usually be the case. And so business SBF built was very ad hoc on the inside and when things started crashing down SBF made some extremely poor but well intentioned decisions. But now? He's learned his lesson"
And then he gets his probation and a ban from working in the industry for X years. And maybe even a handslap jail sentence.
Based on what's come out so far that has some small chance of still being how he gets off the hook, but it's early days and getting worse by the tweet.
Really? Sam Bankman-Fried is a crook. None of the other family members have been convicted and I have seen no evidence that they knew SBF was a crook or any evidence they knew of FTX’s fraud. I have seen people who have lobbed baseless accusations again SBF’s parents. Lots of them. None can ever justify their demands for punishment. My own guess is his parents did not know he was committing fraud, and they have suffered because of his crimes. I do not see any reason to punish two people who were misled and lied to.
I think the sons/daughter of the elite (like law school professors) get used to getting away with anything for their small crimes that they forget when they fuck up in a big and public way it becomes a lot more difficult to just sweep it under the rug. My guess is law professor daddy/mommy have bailed him out before and he never got the talk that when he does these things he needs to do it in a way where authorities can at least pretend they didn't see anything.
If you observe SBF behavior it's clear he has an almost kid-like understanding of the world, which speaks of a pretty sheltered existence that can nourish sociopaths.
Patrick Boyle lays out the evidence that SBF's parents were intimately involved in the scam and likely attempted to hide assets. If true, they should be tried as well: https://youtu.be/gLvOT2AldwM?si=QCQv4j1VUrDX_cyf
SBF had a cushy house arrest inside his private Billionaire-class mansion until he started tampering with witnesses.
SBF is presumed innocent (for now) on FTX issues. But he's being punished for his poor pre-trial behaviors. Which is fair and just, prison conditions aside.
after reading about his parents' high level of involvement, i think they knew there were all sorts of illegal things going on, and decided to not ask too many questions to allow for plausible deniability.
but they gladly kept spending that money and spreading that influence.
and, to seemingly throw away your kid's future because you're so enthralled with finally being one of the true bigwigs around Stanford... smh.
he needed parents.
and the myriad people surrounding him for years during the theft and fraud -- who are now all Pikachu-faced that he could have been doing these dastardly things.
and maybe sbf will get his little brother sent to jail, too.
SBF wasn't paying attention to the SPAC people -- you gotta take yours off the top, like a politician (quoting dead prez) -- not just steal everyone's money, and _def_ don't steal from the rich -- i thought we all collectively learned these lessons.
if we killed SPACs _and_ crypto, where are all the scammers gonna go?
conspiracy. wire fraud. commodities fraud. securities fraud. money laundering. the Federales even threw in a campaign finance charge just for giggles.
> how involved the Stanford Law School professor parents of SBF were and still are.
My favorite SBF Dad anecdote is how his father was being paid $200k a year as a consultant for FTX but he wanted to be making $1million a year, so he CC'd SBF's mom when bringing it up.
> In the emails, per the lawsuit, Bankman told the company's US head of administration he was getting only $16,667 a month from the company when he was "supposed to be getting $1M/yr, starting in December," which "would be a bit more than $80,000 a month, gross."
> He then apparently took his complaints to his son, who cofounded the company and was its CEO, writing in an email: "Gee, Sam I don't know what to say here. This is the first [I] have heard of the 200K a year salary! Putting Barbara on this."
> FTX's lawyers then wrote: "In other words, Bankman lobbied his son to massively increase his own salary."
> "Bankman's influence paid off, not only for him but for Fried too," the lawyers continued.
> "Within two weeks, Bankman-Fried gifted Bankman and Fried together $10 million in funds originating from Alameda Ltd.
> "Within three months, Bankman-Fried caused the couple to be deeded a $16.4 million property in The Bahamas paid for with funds ultimately provided by FTX Trading. Bankman and Fried enjoyed the benefits of more than $90,000 in expenses, paid for by FTX Trading, for their Bahamas residence."
As fun as the fantastical conspiracy theories are, often the truth is the much more boring “Wealthy people are like everyone else and will often help their friends’ families if they’re in a position to do so.”
I’d lean toward that explanation here. The only question with SBF is how long he’s going to spend in prison so it’s not surprising a friend of his family stepped in so they could spend the duration of the court case with him rather than visiting him in pre-trial detention.
It appears that many FTX/Alameda employees were in the dark as well and had huge losses. There's probably no shortage of angry employees interested in sending him to jail (and probably ensuring SBF gets blamed and not them). Add SBF bloviating endlessly on the internet and admitting crimes and you have an easy case?
It seems undeniable they were stealing from people and she knew and was part of the operation. She is likely going to get a minimal sentence by cooperating with the prosecution. The only ethical person in the room resigned as soon as he realized what FTX and Alameda were doing according to his testimony in court today. SBF managing to give his girlfriend much less compensation in stolen money than his father seems like a minor lapse compared to all the other actual criminal acts going on here.
1) SBF's father worked for the company, and
2) SBF's mom bragged about him around campus.
Therefore...jail? What actual crime did they commit and what's the evidence for it?
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