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Crime

A Fourth FTX Executive Sentenced: Forfeits $11 Billion, But No Prison Time (apnews.com) 52

Posted by EditorDavid from the crime-doesn't-pay dept.
Former FTX executive Nishad Singh was ordered to forfeit $11 billion, reports CNBC — and is subject to three years of supervised release, making him "the fourth ex-employee of the collapsed crypto exchange to be punished."

But while he'd faced a maximum sentence of 75 years, he'll serve no time, according to this report from the Associated Press: Singh, the company's former engineering director, was sentenced in Manhattan by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who said his cooperation was "remarkable." The judge noted that Singh did not learn of the billions of dollars that were misappropriated from FTX customer accounts and investors until two months before the fraud unraveled... Singh, 29, testified a year ago at Bankman-Fried's trial, saying he was "blindsided and horrified" when he saw the extent of the fraud behind the once-celebrated and seemingly pioneering firm. At sentencing, Singh said he was "overwhelmed with remorse" for his role in the fraud. "I strayed so far from my values, and words can't express how sorry I am," he said....

The sentencing came a month after Caroline Ellison, another key witness at Bankman-Fried's trial and a former top executive in his cryptocurrency empire, was sentenced to two years in prison. At the time, Kaplan praised her cooperation but said it wasn't a get-out-of-jail-free card. On Wednesday, Kaplan drew a distinction between the cooperation by Ellison and Singh's work with prosecutors, saying Ellison had participated in the fraud "from the beginning" and had been aware of all the wrongdoing for years... [Defense attorney Andrew Goldstein] said leniency would encourage future cooperators in other criminal cases to come forward.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos credited Singh with providing information within weeks of the fraud being publicly revealed, saying he helped prosecutors learn about crimes they might otherwise have never discovered, including his own. Roos said, for instance, that Singh told prosecutors about campaign finance violations that occurred as FTX executives made tens of millions of dollars in donations to political candidates. The prosecutor also said Singh revealed private conversations with Bankman-Fried that strengthened the government's case and enabled it to bring charges more quickly against multiple people. Singh gave prosecutors "documentary evidence the government did not have and likely never would have had," Roos said.
Bankman-Fried, of course, began a 25-year sentence last November. And three weeks ago FTX executive Ryan Salame made an update on his LinkedIn profile. "I'm happy to share that I'm starting a new position as Inmate at FCI Cumberland!"

"His post quickly went viral," notes CNN, "prompting Salame to joke on X: "Today I learned people still use LinkedIn."

A Fourth FTX Executive Sentenced: Forfeits $11 Billion, But No Prison Time More | Reply

A Fourth FTX Executive Sentenced: Forfeits $11 Billion, But No Prison Time

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  • Really? (Score:3)

    by cusco ( 717999 ) <brian@bixby.gmail@com> on Saturday November 02, 2024 @03:54PM (#64915041)

    Really? He made ELEVEN BILLION DOLLARS that he had to forfeit and yet was so ignorant of how the company was run that he didn't know that a scam was going on? Seriously Judge Kaplan? What kind of insider tips did he provide you to make you pretend to be that naive?

    • And he wasn't even "punished" as TFA claims since he got zero jail time. So it was really "nice try, maybe you'll get away with it the next time round".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mysidia ( 191772 )

      He made ELEVEN BILLION DOLLARS that he had to forfeit and yet was so ignorant ..

      No. $11 billion's the sum of the FTX fraud committed by all parties. Each person convicted of a role in the fraud is gettin ordered to forfeit $11 Billion.

      This will be the case, even if the executive made $0 off the fraud.

    • That's what I was thinking. Hell, if you earn 11 billion dollars, you could probably have somehow spent , oh, 20million without anyone noticing. Going forward, that's a pretty huge enticement to just do illegal things and hope you don't get caught, and if you do you just totally cooperate.
  • Sounds like "remarkable cooperation" is this guy's professional specialty, whether with the fraud going on all around him or with the criminal investigation into the fraud. How convenient.

    • Sounds like "remarkable cooperation" is this guy's professional specialty, whether with the fraud going on all around him or with the criminal investigation into the fraud. How convenient.

      The irony of your professional specialty remark? Us taxpayers finding out a few federal-pensioner-net-worth reports from now how the Good Guys “confiscated” a few billion for themselves under SOP in exchange for those no-jail-time sentences.

      Yup. You’re right. More fraud than you can imagine. A society that worships Dollar Almighty, sponsored by the very government that created it. How very convenient.

      Human Behavior. A denominator so common it’s practically predictable after

      • Indeed. Call it selling indulgences or voluntary fine agreements, it amounts to the same thing: Sharing in the loot. Criminal laws simply don't apply to this class, unless they're convicted of betraying their own. One of them who kills a thousand average people by reckless greed would be pursued less doggedly than one who defrauds his peers, and one who defrauds average people isn't be subject to any law whatsoever.
  • Are we talking 11 billion USD? Or crypto “worth” supposedly 11 billion dollars?

    Theres a BIG difference between these two things. 11 gigaUSD is real purchasing power. The value of crypto tends to vanish the second you actually try to sell it.

    • If you don't know what $11 billion means, you shouldn't be around money.

    • Are we talking 11 billion USD? Or crypto “worth” supposedly 11 billion dollars? Theres a BIG difference between these two things. 11 gigaUSD is real purchasing power. The value of crypto tends to vanish the second you actually try to sell it.

      Vanishing value? Thats one hell of a fiat alternative. Especially when the best of the best is BIG valued at tens of thousands of real purchasing power.

      Forget recognizing it as legal tender. When governments start taxing it like real value, citizens tend to be willing to defend that value with an equal amount of tenacity and aggression. Go figure.

  • Per teh googles, his net worth was 26 billion in 2021.

    So he is losing about 40% of his net worth with no other penalties.

    I know lots of other people would make that trade, who also unwittingly did something illegal.

    Literally buying justice.

  • I mean... he was the head of engineering, not the head of finance or business or whatnot. It's kind of a dangerous situation if engineers are now on the hook if other people commit crimes using the app they built, thinking it was for legitimate purposes. Conspiracy charges seem rather contrived, assuming the articles' authors aren't lying. How can you conspire to do something you didn't even know was happening, after all?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mysidia ( 191772 )

      Knowing about the crime and taking steps to facilitate the crime makes you a conspirator.

      That's also why he gets ordered to pay $11 Billion, same as SBF and the other executives. It doesn't matter how small your role in the fraud is -- By being a conspirator, even if your role is very minor; your financial liability for the fraud becomes just as high as the people who profited off it the most and masterminded it.

      • Right. But the article specifies that he dodged NOT know about the crime while they were happening, but found out about after-the-fact, only two months before SBF went down. So, unless the article's author lied, Singh was charged and punished for "conspiracy" to commit crimes he not only did not commit, but didn't even know were being committed. Granted, the dude's probably a douchebag... he willingly associated with SBF, after all... and he's still going to be plenty rich and will have a comfortable lif

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mysidia ( 191772 )

          article specifies that he dodged NOT know about the crime while they were happening

          Most likely they had knowledge of something that is criminal and chose not to go along with it and not report it immediately to authorities: even if it is minuscule compared to the total fraud - that would be enough. With conspiracy you don't have to know about the whole crime. Just knowing having criminal intentions along with any of the conspirators will do.

          For example: A member of a gang who was present at any of the talk

    • Engineers can be responsible for damages caused by the code they wrote, so be careful.

      In this case, the engineer knew what was going on [archive.org]. He wrote that code himself.
  • They steal money, get off easy and that's Justice? Hey Snitch and you get off easy. I bet that 11 Bil is going in the gov't pockets and not to the people who lost their money eh?

    • If we didn't have that system, there'll be a lot less justice. Like it or not, the government doesn't often have the evidence to prosecute most crimes. Unless you want justice to be administered based on hearsay and gut feeling. It's hard enough that people don't snitch because being labeled a snitch is considered demeaning.

  • Formerly known as Twitter. Are people still posting there, and who reads it except for the Russian bots?

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