Bitcoin Trader Agrees To Work For Police In Plea Agreement 111
An anonymous reader writes: Florida Bitcoin trader Pascal Reid, who was arrested in a February 2014 sting operation as part of his plea agreement, promised to carry out 20 sessions of law enforcement training in Bitcoin as well as serve as a consultant in criminal cases involving Bitcoin. This is in addition to 90 days in jail with credit for time served and a $500 reimbursement to the State of Florida for the expense of prosecuting him. Qntra has a write up on the case and the full text of the draft plea agreement.
I wonder... (Score:1, Funny)
Reid: "Can I pay that in Bitcoins???"
Re:"20 sessions of law enforcement training" (Score:4, Insightful)
Making them read is probably slightly harder than getting them to fly.
A seminar is much easier for them - they can just pretend to pay attention while looking out the window.
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You will get your clemency when cops read!
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They're LEOs. You'd need to teach them to read first.
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so many internet tough guys in this thread
who will call 911 without a second thought if their house gets broken into
(cue the super duper internet tough guys and their fantasies of getting "justice" by themselves)
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oh you're going to file a report, ok
and there is a system in place that uses that report to find your stolen stuff, which is why you're filing a report, right?
and that system is called...
hint: it's the same one being shat on by anonymous internet tough guy social retards in this thread, that they would all run to crying like babies, without a second thought to their socially retarded posturing in this thread with cheetos dust on their unwashed t shirts in their parent's basement
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Hardly, the police will never find your stolen stuff. You file the report because the insurance companies require it. If anyone does happen to find your stuff it's going to be them, so they don't have to pay.
"i like that part where you never sleep, never leave the gun on the toilet when you take pee, and stay up all night wide awake with eyes in the back of your head tightly gripping
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people robbing your house just want your stuff. there is no hannibal lecter around every corner ready to vivisection you, this is moronic fantasy
even if wide awake, with a gun in my hand, i'd rather him just take my tv and go file a report, as you describe
rather than deal with cleaning up the fucking mess of a guy's brains off my wall and the red tape, or risking my death because i'm a moron who thinks real life is like the movies and that my chance of escalating the conflict to mortal threat always turns o
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Increasingly? Have you observed what's been happening to crime rates?
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Yea, you're a tough guy...
I own guns, but I'm the first one to say that a AR is a horrible weapon for home invasion... The rounds WAY over penetrate and you're responsible for the rounds, no matter why you're shooting...
A shotgun with birdshot is the only weapon I'd use in my home. Even a .45 is too much risk of over-penetration.
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You see this "wisdom" repeated everywhere. Interior walls are nothing but drywall, a pellet gun will slice right through them let alone birdshot at close range.
The only advantages of a shotgun for home defense are wider spread of the shot which makes it easier to hit in the nervous moment when all that practice runs down your leg in a puddle of fear and you are lucky to have managed to point in t
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You should watch the recent Mythbusters episode where they tried this...
Short of hitting a metal electrical box in the wall, even a 9mm went right through several layers of drywall and even a 2x4, and was still lethal...
A .45 has twice the energy of a 9mm, it would be lethal through a lot... more than I'd care to test...
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Hopefully you do factor it in to how serious a situation has to be before utilizing a home defense firearm regardless of caliber. That should be a pretty high bar
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An AR/AK may well go through your house, your neighbors house, and into a third house next to it, depending on the type of round you use.
At short range, bird shot will go through dry wall, but not a lot beyond that. Beyond a dozen or two meters, it may not even be lethal to a human wearing a heavy winter coat (assuming you miss his head). It would suck and hurt, but not nearly to the extent a real bullet would.
A .45 can easily go out of your home and into the next door neighbors house.
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Re: "20 sessions of law enforcement training" (Score:2)
hey, you're not allowed to take responsibility for your own safety in Police State USSA.
Re:"justice" (Score:1)
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Since they caught him, what does that say about the intelligence of the BitCoin dude.
Here's a picture of Pascal Reid and he's exactly as you'd expect him to be. A pasty, doughy hipster who probably subscribes to Ron Paul's newsletter and has his own PornHub Pro account.
https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/12... [akamai.net]
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I'm torn. On the one hand it's wrong to attack someone for watching porn, on the other hand who the fuck actually pays for porn?
Re:Plea agreement = legalized extortion (Score:5, Informative)
So, once you got arrested by the cops, they can extort you for anything by throwing the book at you, and you either risk wasting your life in jail or comply.
This is your so-called "justice" in America?
You're conveniently leaving out the bit where he was helping undercover cops with Bitcoin for the purpose of obtaining stolen credit card numbers. Fuck this guy.
Re:Plea agreement = legalized extortion (Score:5, Insightful)
yes, the cops may falsely charge and falsely imprison an innocent person
i also understands the cops may charge and imprison an actual criminal
i am also fairly certain the latter happens a lot more often than the former
and when the former happens, we should work on making sure laws and policies aren't stupid, that bad apples in the system are punished and removed, and that less mistakes happen. and we should appeal bad convictions and overturn them. how's that sound to you?
what we certainly should not do is imagine that all of law enforcement is only defined by the bad outliers, because that would be fucking moronic
we need law enforcement. and we need to clean up law enforcement. what we don't need is a fucking crusade against the existence of law enforcement like a complete social retard
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if you need a study to prove that law enforcement mostly fights crime, you are, objectively speaking, a socially retarded moron
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career criminals break the law less often than your average police officer. I'll not even get into how bad the "bad outliers" are.
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law enforcement mostly fights crime
you understand that right?
there are bad outliers that need to be cleaned up. absolutely. better laws, more aggressive removal of bad apples, better policies and tactics to prevent tragedies
but my point here is ridicule the (objectively speaking, not a baseless insult) socially retarded morons who are actually on a crusade against the existence of law enforcement itself, and think law enforcement mostly hurts people
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It's not extortion. It's compelling a person to be a witness against himself [wikipedia.org].
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So, once you got arrested by the cops, they can extort you for anything by throwing the book at you, and you either risk wasting your life in jail or comply.
This is your so-called "justice" in America?
plea bargains are common place in most countries. I have no problem with them leveraging the threat of jail against scumbags like this guy in order to catch more or bigger fish. The only time I have real issues with plea bargains is when it is allowing some of the more depraved individuals get off lightly.
Re: Plea agreement = legalized extortion (Score:1, Insightful)
You don't have a problem when somebody who didn't even think commit an actual crime is intimidatedinto a plea as they face grossly exaggerated charges?
That isn't even on your radar?
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it's a tool. it can abused
you don't have an argument against it's use, you have an argument for monitoring of law enforcement and prosecutors
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Abuse is the only form the plea bargain takes. It will
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you do realize that crime and criminals actually exist, right? you only imagine the existence of plea bargains as used against innocent people? what the fuck?
plea bargains are like a wrench. you use a wrench to tighten a bolt. you don't use it to hit a nail or open a window. if some dipshit prosecutor uses a wrench for what a wrench is not intended for, this is an argument against that dipshit prosecutor. it's not an argument against the existence of the fucking wrench!
you fucking social retards, where do y
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Weren't you just a few threads earlier arguing against home gun ownership? You do realize that crime and criminals actually exist, right? You only imagine the existence of guns as used against innocent people? What the fuck? You spewed a statistic and several arguments against protecting yourself with a firearm because it could be used improperl
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you need to be able to keep track of one subject matter at a time. swartz is about prosecutorial overreach and retarded laws endorsed by congresscritters owned by corporations
it doesn't help the side of what is good and right to not even know what the fuck you are talking about
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What do you think this is about then?
If abuse of plea-bargaining is not prosecutor overreach then I do not know what is.
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Swartz wasn't threatened with life. Forty years was the maximum penalty for all the counts, and there was no way he'd get anywhere near that.
Moreover, he wasn't charged with what you say. He covertly used somebody else's network to DOS the academic paper site, denying other people the use of the site. That's actual harm. If he'd bothered to limit the bandwidth he was using, so he wouldn't have been an asshole about it, I don't think anybody would have cared, let alone filed charges.
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And how do you feel when an innocent man accepts a plea bargain because he felt he had no choice but to give a false confession? That is, of course, on of the main dangers in coercing confessions.
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And how do you feel when an innocent man accepts a plea bargain ..?
... or when a guilty person is coerced into giving false testimony against an innocent person in exchange for leniency. It is common for suspects to agree to testify against another person as part of a plea bargain, and later retract that testimony, yet the conviction of the innocent person will stand.
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law enforcement has plenty of problems. it needs to be cleaned up of bad apples and structural stupidities
it's still orders of magnitude better than actual criminals
if you see no difference, you're only revealing yourself to be a social retard
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why are you changing the topic to a situation that has absolutely nothing to do with the case and what kind of retards are voting you up?
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why are you changing the topic to a situation that has absolutely nothing to do with the case and what kind of retards are voting you up?
Because some people are talking about plea bargains in general, rather than about this specific case.
Re:Plea agreement = legalized extortion (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem is in the US it has been taken to an untenable degree. The Aaron Swartz situation is a pretty good example, federal prosecutors threw a litany of charges at him that could have put him in prison for up to 50 years, then offered him a 6 month plea deal. All for downloading some publicly funded research papers using questionable means. This creates a situation where people who have committed extremely minor crimes, or those who haven't committed any crime at all, are forced to "admit guilt" or risk an utterly devastated life.
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look at my sig. i'm no friend of stupid ip laws and aaron's death was a horrible tragedy
but you need to be able to keep track of one subject matter at a time. swartz's case was about prosecutorial overreach and retarded laws endorsed by congresscritters owned by corporations
the scumbag in this story has absolutely nothing to do with swartz. not in intent, not in action, not in prosecution
it doesn't help the side of what is good and right to not even know what the fuck you are talking about. you can't change
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law enforcement frequently fucks up and is full of bad apples and must follow moronic laws and policies
but i really want to know about this magical place you live where law enforcement never makes a mistake, has no bad actors and has perfect laws and policies
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False dichotomy. The current extreme of near universal corruption and abuse at all levels of government including the foot soldiers aka police and a magical land of perfect laws and policies are not the only choices.
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100% correct
i still want to know about where the retard i replied to is from, so i may google and find the easy top 10 examples of recent police and prosecutorial abuse from that country, since it exists everywhere
we're not talking about genocide here, we're talking about a plea bargain with a slimeball criminal. and the asshole i replied to acts like someone is jailing gandhi. this person is obviously a hysterical moron who has no sense of proportion, and i want to prove it to them by shoving far worse rec
Bitcoin is not money (Score:4, Interesting)
It is a commodity, according to today's news at https://news.yahoo.com/cftc-br... [yahoo.com]
But according to the plea bargain "The Defendant, PASCAL REID, will enter a plea of guilty
to count three (3) Unauthorized Money Transmitter in violation of Florida Statute 560.125(5)(A)."
So what is it? Money or commodity?
Re:Bitcoin is not money (Score:5, Informative)
The money laundering charge he received wasn't because bitcoin is money, it's because he agreed to take $30,000 and help them pay for stolen credit cards by converting their US dollars (money) into bitcoin with which they can swap for the CC numbers. Instead of bitcoin they could've used gold bars or silver or pearl necklaces, it's just that bitcoin was more convenient.
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The plea agreement doesn't decide what it is; he chooses to plead guilty in exchange for some deal, instead of having a day in court, even if the charges have no merit.
a) he took $25,000USD b) money is a commodity (Score:4, Informative)
First, he took $25,000 USD cash. Since cash is most definitely money, money was involved. Bitcoin was also involved.
Secondly, a commodity is a fungible thing of value.
Money is a fungible thing of value (commodity) that does not spoil (it's a store of value) which can readily exchanged within a community.
So if it's money it is therefore also a commodity. It's not either/or , it's "yes, this is a commodity, is it also money".
Re:a) he took $25,000USD b) money is a commodity (Score:4, Insightful)
Money is a fungible thing of value (commodity) that does not spoil
Fiat money spoils. It's called inflation. Bitcoin, on the other hand, aims to be deflationary.
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Money is a fungible thing of value (commodity) that does not spoil
Fiat money spoils. It's called inflation. Bitcoin, on the other hand, aims to be deflationary.
So in other words, fiat money gradually over time becomes worthless. Bitcoin is worthless right form the start.
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Fiat money spoils. It's called inflation. Bitcoin, on the other hand, aims to be deflationary.
If you confuse inflation with one of the causes of inflation - printing money. Inflation is a rise in the general price level or a loss of purchasing power, depending on how you look at it. A bitcoin was worth over $1000, now it's worth closer to $200 so that's an actual 80% loss in purchasing power assuming you bought in at the top and live in the US. For the people who just want to use Bitcoin as an intermediary between other currencies you just need a small amount of coins that you keep swapping around,
Which means it'll never work as money (Score:3)
Seriously, people who think that sustained deflation is workable in a currency need to go and take ECON 200 again and l2money.
LOLbertarians (Score:1, Flamebait)
Of course he agreed to work for the police. Because at heart, every BroCoin libertarian is just a punk who will suck the swinging dick of whichever daddy figure has the power.
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Limits with criminal working with law enforcement. If law enforcement needs to take advice from criminals, than something is hugely amiss with their training. The only thing criminals should become involved with in regard to policing is testifying about other crimes already committed, nothing more. Pay an honest computer geek/nerd to do it, if it is actually worth doing. This stupid short cut of working with criminals just results in criminally run investigations, where the criminal again seeks to gain adv
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Limits with criminal working with law enforcement. If law enforcement needs to take advice from criminals, than something is hugely amiss with their training.
They're going straight to the source to find out what the criminals do so they can figure out how to defeat them. That's pretty much exactly what they ought to be doing...
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internet tough guys. fat social retards eating cheetos in their parent's basement trying out the swagger and language of street drug dealers. hilarious
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you're a fat pasty socially underdeveloped fuck in your parents basement drinking soda by the gallon and with greasy pieces of chips on your unwashed t shirt
i would bet real money on that
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internet tough guys. fat social retards eating cheetos in their parent's basement trying out the swagger and language of street drug dealers. pathetic
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It's illegal to operate a "money services business" without a license. Basically, they're saying he was operating like a bank or a Western Union by the mere act of selling $25k in bitcoins for cash. I think this is a first of its kind case when it comes to bitcoin.
He had been charged with money laundering, but that charge had already been dismissed
Problem with plea deal (Score:2)
While I don't have a problem with plea deals in concept (they do have their issues) I have a problem with this one because it's using the person to provide services that the police department would normally have to pay for. So is this going to be a trend now? When someone with knowledge that the police would normally hire in a consultant for they just make sure that there's a clause in the plea deal saying the person has to help the police. Why stop with consultants? Instead of community service you hav
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Well, here's one. And people still bitch about it.
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if you did something wrong you deserved to be punished
i am pretty sure the punished themselves would rather be doing something constructive than rotting in a prison cell
would it be better for this convict to be in jail for the rest of his life? better for society? better for himself?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Doing something constructive is better than being in prison but I object to it taking away a paid job. The police have the resources to pay for someone to consult on computer crimes. The do it know. I'd prefer to see the plea bargain include so many hours teaching computers at a volunteer program for disadvantaged persons or something similar. By having the deal include the consulting for the police it means that the person currently consulting for the police has now lost that work. While probably it w
Utter nonsense (Score:2)
Why did he agree to be arrested? It makes no sense. Surely if he was at the plea bargain stage that had already happened?
Now if you meant "Florida Bitcoin trader Pascal Reid, who was arrested in a February 2014 sting operation, promised as part of his plea agreement to ..." then there's a way to write that.
Facepalm (Score:2)
So. He gets to con ANOTHER group of suckers into believing that Bitcoin is a Good Thing? Right?
Pfft.
And his crime was... (Score:2)
An uninformed person reading that summary could be forgiven for thinking that trading in Bitcoins was his crime! I'm sure the words 'money laundering' could have been worked in there somewhere.