Maybe? I would imagine their case is pretty strong without her flipping on the rest of them. She will get some credit for pleading guilty, but she was CEO of a criminal enterprise while it was actively involved in criminal activity. She's not going to die old in prison, but in all likelihood she will do at least 10-15 years.
As things stand today, she could be sentenced to 110 years for what she's already pled to; she's really got to make the prosecutors happy if she ever wants to live outside again.
If I've learned anything by reading Popehat (Ken White), it's that the "faces up to X years in prison" lines you see in news articles are totally uninformative - there's a complex set of sentencing guidelines that determines the actual range of possibilities. I don't know what that range is in this case, but I very much doubt the top end is anywhere close to 110 years.
IANAL but I understand the top end quotes (110 years in this case) are typically available to judges by ordering sentences to run consecutively.
She's pled to a set of felonies that each carry stiff penalties. A judge would apparently be within the law and federal guidelines to decide that an appropriate sentence is somewhere between the sentence for any one of the charges and below the sentence for running all the sentences consecutively. It's really easy to get sentencing guidelines to arrive at over 100 years for multiple felonies, if you stipulate consecutive sentences.
One notable exception to the typical kid-gloves treatment of financial crime syndicates was Bernie Madoff, who was sentenced to 150 years, the top of the sentencing guidelines.
There is often lots of evidence in fraud cases of what happened, but the mens rea of knowingly committing fraud is bolstered by having a close partner testify. It can otherwise be difficult for the jury to differentiate negligent incompetence from willful fraud, especially in complex scenarios like most financial fraud.
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Maybe? I would imagine their case is pretty strong without her flipping on the rest of them. She will get some credit for pleading guilty, but she was CEO of a criminal enterprise while it was actively involved in criminal activity. She's not going to die old in prison, but in all likelihood she will do at least 10-15 years.
As things stand today, she could be sentenced to 110 years for what she's already pled to; she's really got to make the prosecutors happy if she ever wants to live outside again.
If I've learned anything by reading Popehat (Ken White), it's that the "faces up to X years in prison" lines you see in news articles are totally uninformative - there's a complex set of sentencing guidelines that determines the actual range of possibilities. I don't know what that range is in this case, but I very much doubt the top end is anywhere close to 110 years.
Edit: One such article for illustrative purposes: https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentenc... . In this case, the news-headline number is "up to 77 years" and the plausible range Popehat calculates is 2-2.5 years.
IANAL but I understand the top end quotes (110 years in this case) are typically available to judges by ordering sentences to run consecutively.
She's pled to a set of felonies that each carry stiff penalties. A judge would apparently be within the law and federal guidelines to decide that an appropriate sentence is somewhere between the sentence for any one of the charges and below the sentence for running all the sentences consecutively. It's really easy to get sentencing guidelines to arrive at over 100 years for multiple felonies, if you stipulate consecutive sentences.
One notable exception to the typical kid-gloves treatment of financial crime syndicates was Bernie Madoff, who was sentenced to 150 years, the top of the sentencing guidelines.
Madoff refused to cooperate.
There is often lots of evidence in fraud cases of what happened, but the mens rea of knowingly committing fraud is bolstered by having a close partner testify. It can otherwise be difficult for the jury to differentiate negligent incompetence from willful fraud, especially in complex scenarios like most financial fraud.