This is a link post for Caroline Ellison’s guilty plea. In addition, the latest from the NY Times is that both her and Gary Wang are co-operating with the federal investigation against Sam Bankman-Fried. Posting here so everyone remains up to date with the progress of this case.
Wang has agreed to plead guilty as well. [edited to clarify that the information hasn’t even been filed yet]
No agreement in the linked doc on recommended sentence; it sounds like USAO is not going to recommend a “specific” sentence at all. The Guidelines sentence will be 110 years but that is rather unlikely to happen. There are ways to cap a defendant’s exposure if the prosecution will agree but they were not done here. Then again, she probably had little negotiating power here. They did agree to not oppose fairly generous bail terms at least?
My best guess is that she and Wang are looking at about a decade based on what top lieutenants to big-time scammers like Madoff got. My over/under on SBF is 27.5 years. But lots of uncertainty on both estimates.
Thanks, I appreciate your insights.
This updates me to 90-10 fraud. Sophisticated parties generally don’t plead guilty to crimes they did not commit, and both Ellison and Wang are well-represented. I was probably overly optimistic with earlier predictions, perhaps in part due to positive personal interactions with Sam.
Very sad for everyone involved.
How would you justify a 10% credence in there not having been massive fraud going on at FTX?
wayne has some … interesting … views
90-10 (fraud-mistake) when Ellison and Wang plead guilty
55-45 when the charges were made public
50-50 when SBF was arrested
25-75 after people disputed his comment below
20-80 after SBF’s dealbook interview
I think it’s the combination of a very strong prior for mistake + not following the situation especially closely
Props to wayne for providing regular and consistent updates to his beliefs, that’s actually pretty amazing
An apparently significant point: the guilty plea + press release from SEC asserts that their part in the fraud began in May 2019 - i.e., the date FTX was founded.
So, at least in SEC’s eyes, FTX was founded as a fraud and has been ever since. Seems the implication for recovery of funds would be that giving/grant date is irrelevant—it is likely to all be viewed as proceeds from fraud.
I think the language used in the plea, such as “between in or about” and by the SEC “between”, matters here, meaning there isn’t a clear date of when the fraud started, or at least not that they are stating as of yet.
I wouldn’t reach that much into these standard lawyerisms. Ellison and Wang also pretty much stipulated to the CFTC complaint in a separate document, and wouldn’t likely have done so if those dates were materially imprecise—the duration of the fraud will be, I think, a significant sentencing issue.
Ok, thanks. Retracted my comment since it was just a guess.
TL;DR provided by ABC News:
There are people who are beautiful inside and out, and there are those who are ugly outside and in. SBF & Caroline Ellison Is a good example.
As a moderator, I don’t think this comment is appropriate for the Forum. I don’t think discussing someone’s attractiveness in this way is relevant or kind. This is a warning, please do better in the future if you plan to engage more with the Forum.
Caroline might have tripped in a pretty awful way, but I am sure she is good at the core and acted with ultimate good intentions in mind (even if the path to hell is paved with good intentions. That is why pure utilitarianism can take you to dark places). Her beauty or lack thereof has nothing to add to that. And anyway, de gustibus non est disputandum—for me, she is the opposite of not pretty.
I agree with your penultimate sentence, but c’mon, the response to a comment about SBF / Caroline being ugly inside and out shouldn’t be “actually I think she’s pretty”...
More generally, I would not agree with the idea that evil is ugly and good is beautiful (at least personally.)