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Comment on Where did FTX customer money go? Firm says Bankman-Fried took $2.2Bparent

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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.

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