With DOJ Charges, Former VC Mike Rothenberg Could Now Be Facing Serious Jail Time (techcrunch.com) 29
Connie Loizos writing via TechCrunch: While some in Silicon Valley might prefer to forget about investor Mike Rothenberg roughly four years after his young venture firm began to implode, his story is still being written, and the latest chapter doesn't bode well for the 36-year-old. While Rothenberg earlier tangled with the Securities and Exchange Commission and lost, it was a civil matter, if one that could haunt him for the rest of his life. Now, the U.S. Department of Justice has brought two criminal wire fraud charges against him, charges that he made two false statements to a bank and money laundering charges, all of which could result in a very long time in prison depending on how things play out.
How long, exactly? The DOJ says the the two bank fraud charges and the two false statements to a bank charges "each carry a maximum of 30 years in prison, not more than five years supervised release, and a $1,000,000 fine," while the money laundering charges "carry a penalty of imprisonment of not more than ten years, not more than three years of supervised release, and a fine of not more than twice the amount of the criminally derived property involved in the transaction at issue." The damage done in the brief life of Rothenberg's venture outfit -- even while understood in broad strokes by industry watchers -- is rather breathtaking. As laid out by the DOJ, Rothenberg raised and managed four funds from the time he founded his firm, Rothenberg Ventures, in 2012, through 2016, and his criminal activities began almost immediately...
How long, exactly? The DOJ says the the two bank fraud charges and the two false statements to a bank charges "each carry a maximum of 30 years in prison, not more than five years supervised release, and a $1,000,000 fine," while the money laundering charges "carry a penalty of imprisonment of not more than ten years, not more than three years of supervised release, and a fine of not more than twice the amount of the criminally derived property involved in the transaction at issue." The damage done in the brief life of Rothenberg's venture outfit -- even while understood in broad strokes by industry watchers -- is rather breathtaking. As laid out by the DOJ, Rothenberg raised and managed four funds from the time he founded his firm, Rothenberg Ventures, in 2012, through 2016, and his criminal activities began almost immediately...
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They should probably lock his kid up but the rest of your post is trash, sorry. Trump let Hillary off the hook just so the DoJ wouldn't come after his own people if/when they wound up doing the same thing (albeit on a smaller scale).
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They should probably lock his kid up
Leave Barron alone!!!
Donation (Score:2, Interesting)
Mike Rothenberg should make a nice donation to Trump's re-election campaign. Trump will then tell AG Barr to drop the case or fire US attorney David L. Anderson who's in charge of the case a la Geoffrey Berman
money laundering = FPITA prison (Score:2)
money laundering = FPITA prison
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money laundering = FPITA prison
The "F" and the "PITA" don't go together.
Federal prisons are mostly full of low risk non-violent white-collar criminals.
He should remember to bring his tennis racket.
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He should remember to bring his tennis racket.
They'll probably make him buy a special one from whoever sells them their overpriced snacks. He'll probably even have to wear poor-brand tennis shoes. Hard time.
Re: money laundering = FPITA prison (Score:1)
Very scary deterrent indeed.
If he was really facing PMITA prison, we may see less cases of this.
Mike Who??? (Score:4, Interesting)
He was the manager of a piddling $47mil venture capital fund. How is this even news? He was a Stanford frat party boy who used his old boy network connections to shmooze his way into a modest amount of money then burned it faster than he could make it. This is so common as to be cliche. Who cares?
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How is this even news?
It is news because everyone in tech resents VCs and enjoys a story about one of them laid low.
Our "justice" system is insane. (Score:1)
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Conversely, it might not be better in Finland. Yesterday it was reported: a man was charged with one child sexual abuse, six assaults and one rape and the judgment was two years of prison, conditionally, by the district court of Central Finland. Three days after the judgment he assaulted his live-in spouse. Then he got three months in prison. The prosecutor was unhappy and is asking for six months in prison from the appeals court of Vaasa.
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Conversely, it might not be better in Finland. Yesterday it was reported: a man was charged with one child sexual abuse, six assaults and one rape and the judgment was two years of prison, conditionally, by the district court of Central Finland. Three days after the judgment he assaulted his live-in spouse. Then he got three months in prison. The prosecutor was unhappy and is asking for six months in prison from the appeals court of Vaasa.
I don't know anything about the law in Finland, I know it's nothing as insane as the USA, though that isn't a high bar or anything.
But I'm curious, is this the usual and normal sentencing for such crimes? I know outside of the USA there tends to be more focus on reform and medical/psychological help than punishment, which tends to skew how it looks for actual prison sentences.
But usually heinous crimes, in the legal definition of the word, a person is separated from society primarily to protect society fro
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Thanks for the reply. I'm afraid I don't know much about Finnish judicial customs much even though I live here, so just some words. I think sentences would generally be somewhat harsher. Getting help to perpetrators is not very easy even here.
The general pattern is that people think sentences for crimes like assaults, rape and child sexual abuse are too lenient. Vigilante justice hasn't happened in Finland as far as I know.
Re: Our "justice" system is insane. (Score:1)
Prisons in the Nordic countries are *LITERALLY* like the fabled country club prisons we often hear people moan about in the States when a high profile white collar criminal gets locked up. I don't think countries like Finland or Norway have anything that comes close to a typical American PMITA prison.
Here's an example:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
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Your meant to rob from the poor and give to the rich, keeping a percentage for yourself, than no jail time, just a slap on the wrist. Well, when you rob from the rich, no slap on the wrist for you, an extended prison sentence and confiscation of all the assets they can find. Many disappear and that does mean they get away, they allowed investments from organised crime, they work to get the money that was hidden away, what ever it takes. The bitcoin scammers are the ones who have to put the most effort into
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Could you, please, provide some specifics? What robbery are you talking about?
We have no idea what his sentence might be (Score:3)
He has just now been charged with crimes.
We don't know what, of anything, he might be convicted of.
We don't know what his sentence will be of he's convicted.
You said "But a murder or rapist gets 7-10 often?"
The maximum sentence for murder is life in prison, or death. The maximum sentence for rape is 99 years in Texas, (maximum 3-8 years in California depending). The maximum sentence for the crime he's charged with is 30 years.
Very, very rarely does a rapist get the maximum sentence of 99 years in Texas, a
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A rapist in my area got 94 years, and he was a cop.
Here, the maximum sentence a person accused of the crime he's accused of could face would be 30 years, but that is for money laundering if it was the worst sort of money laundering ever. So now look up what types of crimes money laundering gets done for. OK, so the max doesn't matter once you've seen that list. ;)
Federal sentencing guidelines is where you look to see what sentence a person is facing; sentences outside that range, without strong aggravating
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The penalties listed in the summary are MAXIMUM sentences.
Almost nobody gets those sentences.
90% of federal charges end in plea bargains, where the charges (and penalties) are greatly reduced.
8% end in dismissals.
2% go to trial. This is where the maximum penalties apply to punish anyone with the audacity to believe that a Constitutional right to a fair trial still exists.
There is no justice (Score:4, Insightful)
And yet, the bastards from Goldman Sachs who drove the entire world economy into recession with their slimy business practices get huge bonuses and a multi-billion dollar taxpayer-funded bailout.
Rothenberg might not be a saint, but half the movers and shakers on Wall Street deserve prison time more than he does.
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It is quite possible the people in charge of the prosecution want to make an example out of this small fish so they can claim to be "doing something" without having to go after the big fish.
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I think you're almost certainly right about that.
Wording (Score:2)
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Only 33% are sentenced within the guidelines on these charges, over 60% are below that supposed "minimum." The minimum is not a real minimum, it is a minimum guideline before variances, but even without formal variances the sentences are usually adjusted to below that range.
These are white crimes, after all.