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Comment by dayaz36 | Hacker News Reader

To give some background on how his sentencing increased so dramatically, initially he was convicted but since no one lost any money his sentencing guidelines were 0-12 months(most likely no jail time since it was his first offence). As a general rule of thumb in federal fraud cases sentencing is primarily determined by the what's called the "loss amount" of the crime in question. But a couple weeks ago the judge decided to come up with a HYPOTHETICAL loss and base the sentencing on that! And that hypothetical loss was set at $10.4M! Meaning he just went from no jail time 7 years overnight. This seems beyond absurd and as far as I know has no precedence.

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> To give some background on how his sentencing increased so dramatically

It didn't increase. His sentence was never anything else.

> initially he was convicted but since no one lost any money his sentencing guidelines were 0-12 months(most likely no jail time since it was his first offence).

False again. When the sentencing phase began, his lawyers argued there were no legal losses caused by his fraud, and prosecutors argued that losses were in the $9-20 million range. Both sides presented evidence and legal argument to support their position.

> As a general rule of thumb in federal fraud cases sentencing is primarily determined by the what's called the "loss amount" of the crime in question.

This much is correct.

> But a couple weeks ago the judge decided to come up with a HYPOTHETICAL loss and base the sentencing on that!

False; it was not a hypothetical loss amount. The court applied existing legal precedent that “loss in fraud cases includes the amount of property taken, even if all or part has been returned.” [0]

[0] http://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Shk...

Interesting! From your [0] link:

"The Second Circuit repeatedly has held that “loss in fraud cases includes the amount of property taken, even if all or part has been returned.”"

"(Rejecting the defendant’s argument that the value of his fraud victim’s equity in his partnership should be subtracted from the loss amount, and holding that “[t]he ‘loss’ was the money that the investors were fraudulently induced to invest ...irrespective of the value of the [property].”)"

"The Sentencing Guidelines provide for specific “Credits Against Loss,” whereby loss calculations may be reduced by, inter alia, “[t]he money returned . . . by the defendant to the victim before the offense was detected.” The Guidelines define “time of detection” for purposes of credit against loss as “the earlier of (I) the time the offense was discovered by a victim or government agency; or (II) the time the defendant knew or reasonably should have known that the offense was detected or about to be detected by a victim or government agency."

Where are your sources that he was only facing 0-12 months when he was initially convicited? There are stories from the time of his conviction (in 2017) that say he could potentially face decades in prison:

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2017/08/05/lack-of-remors...

> initially he was convicted but since no one lost any money his sentencing guidelines were (...)

So.. If I try to rob a bank and fail and no money is stolen, then the sentence should be reduced?

Running a hedge fund in completely different than robing a bank. You should use at least an iota of intelligence before commenting.

Sure, you don't go to prison for running hedge fund. That is legal. He was not convinced for running fund.

And yet, you avoided answering the question :-)

No your sentence should be that of whats historically been the sentence, not 700% more than average.

I heard it was originally going to be 50 days but the judge decided to mark it up by 5000pc

Guidelines were 27 years.

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