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Comment by janmo | Hacker News Reader

SBF is literally adding one year more year to his sentence in every interview he gives. He should just shut up.

(Not legal advice)

At this point, I'm very surprised he hasn't been extradited to the US. I suppose these things take time, but he's been given the opportunity to rub salt in the wounds of thousands of people that lost billions. He shows absolutely zero remorse for his actions that have led to several suicides.

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake"

-- commonly attributed to Napoleon

That is incredibly bad advice to generalize. Not all mistakes one's "enemy" makes are to one's benefit. Your enemy might make a huge mistake by killing your family in front of a lot of witnesses, doesn't mean you should let him because you want to see him go to jail.

Fair, but from the perspective of a prosecutor, it makes sense to let him dig his hole deeper. Every time he lies to the public he further establishes mens rhea.

But of course it would take much longer than a month to extradite him anyhow, so the most likely explanation is that they haven't had time to decide if they have enough evidence to extradite him, let alone to do it.

(IANAL)

Doesn't take a month to cancel his passport. Wouldn't his stay be illegal at that point and he could easily be deported?

This is total speculation but I think the Bahamian authorities are significantly more friendly to him then US authorities, and whether or not he could continue to stay without a passport would presumably be their call. If they grant him asylum they might refuse to extradite him.

Let him keep his passport and there's every chance he'll just turn up of his own volition to speak at a conference, give an interview, or pitch a new venture.

I don't think a jury would look kindly on playing so dirty with someone who posed no clear threat and didn't even seem to be on the run. And I don't think it would be right to either, until there's enough evidence to bring charges, he's presumed to be an innocent man in the eyes of the law. (We are of course free to come to our own judgement as individuals.)

All he's doing is giving interviews. Even if he's lying through his teeth (as I believe he is) - it's still his 1A right to do so.

I kinda thought the Napoleon attribution was enough to show I don't think it's a universal truism across all time and scenarios :)

Incompetence is a defense against fraud, so if you reconsider his actions through the lens of an attempt to bolster an incompetence-based defense, would it look any different to what he's done?

He knows nothing bad will happen to him.

Naw, he paid a lot of politicians, he fine.

It's not clear to me that donating to politicians necessarily buys you clemency (in the absence of explicit quid pro quo), but accepting the premise, I think at a certain point, when your crimes and donations are widely publicized, there's a phase transition where it's more likely to work against you. The politicians can't bare the perception of having been bought, and whatever influence they're able to muster is directed against you.

But it's not clear to me that donating to campaigns in a handful of election cycles buys you very much influence within the DoJ. Influencing politicians in order to impact the nomination of judges or other appointees, or to pass certain laws - those are clear mechanisms, but they take many election cycles to implement. It seems to me like SBF's influence campaign was successfully building good will for the crypto legislation he supported, but that FTX/Alameda blew up before that could come to fruition.

I expect his donations to be largely neutral to his potential prosecution but am open to reporting surfacing facts to the contrary.

Right, I would think that bribing politicians only gets you favors if both a) the favors have sufficient political cover, and b) there is the prospect of further bribes. Neither of those seem true here.

For a), SBF has become a dirty name and politicians don't have cover to do anything blatantly favorable to him.

For b), any money he might have touched is under intense scrutiny, especially if it makes its way to a politician. Ironically, his best hope might be if he had untraceably moved money into cryptocurrency, especially stablecoins.

If he paid enough of the right ones in Bahamas, combined with their extradition policy being what it is, that'd be his one hope. American politicians might promise you a lot, but at the end of the day, the checks and balances don't even give them leeway to truly be quite this openly corrupt. Now, a staged suicide and a new identity abroad...well, you'd have to have paid a LOT of bribes, but this isn't impossible...

> he fine.

given how crypto attracts illegal activity i wonder if he cheated people who prefer to not get their justice through the legal system...

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