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Comment by adamredwoods | Hacker News Reader

I'm more curious if all the money had to be paid back? If she received a salary of millions and did not have to pay that back, I would say white-collar crime is a viable path to becoming a millionaire?

For example, Martha Stewart was in prison, but has never lost a step in her empire.

FOUND:

>> Late Monday, Ellison’s attorneys in a court filing said they had finalized financial settlements with prosecutors and the FTX debtor’s estate.

>> The filing did not say how much she would pay in those settlements, which are separate from the forfeiture order, but it was already known that Ellison’s $10 million in shares in the AI startup Anthropic, which have grown substantially since she first bought them, provide the bulk value of her settlements.

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Martha Stewart built that empire well before she dabbled in insider trading. Wikipedia says that she sold $230 thousand of ImClone stock. I doubt that paying that back--and to whom?--would have seriously hurt.

Would you trade years in prison and being a felon for a few million buck? Genuine question.

There are not many jobs out there that pay you a few million dollars for two years of work, so yes!

Downside: among the usual US-specific stuff, as a felon it's much harder to receive most countries' permanent visas. It's a case by case and you will get unlucky. There's often a 'character requirement' which is very loosely defined.

Unless you have hard requirements the visa is worked around easy enough. If you don't work you stay off the radar in most countries. If you are flexible some countries accept criminal reports from your local sheriff/police, which often only show offenses in that jurisdiction.

It rules out the five eyes countries but there's little reason for a US already rich person to emigrate to another similar anglo country.

For instance, I have read court cases of felons who illegally entered Argentina and were later granted Argentine citizenship. And Cambodia sells citizenship that expressly brags basically the king will look at it and decide if you are a douche, no criminal reports iirc.

Pre-marriage Yes. Im a family man now, so not for 2.

2 million is about 10 years of salary. maybe double if you include the time value of money.

Would you spend 2 years in jail now to live 20 years longer? Have 2 more children? to retire 30 years earlier?

2 years in the prison she will end up at or the one SBF is at? For multiple millions, yeah 100% immediately.

2 years in a supermax or in one of the super violent federal prisons... probably not.

Nobody gets their 2 year fed sentence in a medium or pen

(unless they already attempted to escape from the minimum security / camp, or some weird corner cases like that)

Man. American poor people enlist to the army, knowing very well they have a pretty good chance of being sent to be maimed or killed in some desert fighting for some oil company or Israel for far less money than a few million.

Not now, as I have a child, but pre-child, I would give it serious consideration.

For me it's the opposite!

it's dubious whether it would pay off long term given the stigma of being a felon. whatever return there is, probably not enough to account for the mental distress involved

Two years, two million?

I wouldn't, but millions of people would.

You think she stole a few?

At her age with world as your oyster it would be tough.

At 30,40+ already locked into a narrowly defined routine of toddlers screaming at you 24/7 because of some variation of you selected the wrong color cup, and your bank account and energy constantly being drained to zero by thankless familial responsibilities I can see how someone might find it attractive to spend a few years reading in a cell and working out with the cartel bros and some payload of cash waiting to satisfy any remaining child support.

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