Not weird. If you get a foreign country to extradite someone on charge X, you can’t turn around and prosecute them for charge Y (if charge Y is different enough). That’s a basic principle of extradition law, and I agree with the Bahamas that the campaign-finance violations were different enough from the original counts.
They probably could have recharged after some legal tapdancing, but they decided to ask Judge Kaplan to consider this conduct at sentencing (which he did based on the Guidelines calc he did). They knew recharging was very unlikely to change the final sentence.
I… think I will continue describing this as “weird” though it makes sense that as a lawyer it’s not that weird to you.
It feels very off to have a bunch of crimes uninvestigated because someone fled the country and then was extradited, and I am pretty confused why the Bahamas cooperated with Sam here (my guess is that it’s a case of political corruption, though I can also imagine other reasons). It’s not like the Bahamas had anything obvious to gain from Sam not being convicted of the campaign finance violations.
Broader concerns about sovereignty and the integrity of the extradition system likely played a role. Although it’s understandable why US prosecutors asked for provisional arrest and extradition despite not having obtained an indictment for campaign-finance violations yet, it’s also understandable to me why the Bahamas wants to signal its expectation that the US comply with the treaty as written—especially where the argument that the first extradition was good enough for these charges is legally weak.
Note that the US could have asked for permission to proceed on other charges—see Article 14(b) of the treaty—but I think that may have required going back through the Bahamas legal system again, and probably delaying the trial. Hence, the prosecution severed off those charges, and then decided not to proceed after getting its conviction on others. I don’t know Bahamas campaign or extradition law, but there would also be difficulties if the offense was deemed one of a political character (Article 3(1)(a)) or was one that was not a criminal offense punishable by more than a year in prison under Bahamas law (Article 2(1)).
Also, I don’t think “completely uninvestigated” is a correct characterization—they were investigated enough to be presented to a grand jury, which indicted SBF for campaign-finance violations. Federal prosecutors do not generally indict without a pretty good investigation first, especially in high-profile cases. I think we have a pretty decent idea of what he did (see pp. 18-22 of the prosecution’s sentencing memo). Moreover, Salame and Singh—who don’t have extradition-related issues—pled guilty to campaign-finance violations.
Also, I don’t think “completely uninvestigated” is a correct characterization—they were investigated enough to be presented to a grand jury, which indicted SBF for campaign-finance violations. Federal prosecutors do not generally indict without a pretty good investigation first, especially in high-profile cases. I think we have a pretty decent idea of what he did (see pp. 18-22 of the prosecution’s sentencing memo). Moreover, Salame and Singh—who don’t have extradition-related issues—pled guilty to campaign-finance violations.
Oh, that is interesting and an update for me. I had interpreted the relevant section of the memo as more of a “we didn’t really investigate it, but here is what we have”, but you know this stuff much better than I do.
Not weird. If you get a foreign country to extradite someone on charge X, you can’t turn around and prosecute them for charge Y (if charge Y is different enough). That’s a basic principle of extradition law, and I agree with the Bahamas that the campaign-finance violations were different enough from the original counts.
https://apnews.com/article/bankmanfried-ftx-crypto-charges-ellison-60aa798f4aacb0ddd6a422b72e5a7614
They probably could have recharged after some legal tapdancing, but they decided to ask Judge Kaplan to consider this conduct at sentencing (which he did based on the Guidelines calc he did). They knew recharging was very unlikely to change the final sentence.
I… think I will continue describing this as “weird” though it makes sense that as a lawyer it’s not that weird to you.
It feels very off to have a bunch of crimes uninvestigated because someone fled the country and then was extradited, and I am pretty confused why the Bahamas cooperated with Sam here (my guess is that it’s a case of political corruption, though I can also imagine other reasons). It’s not like the Bahamas had anything obvious to gain from Sam not being convicted of the campaign finance violations.
That’s fair.
Broader concerns about sovereignty and the integrity of the extradition system likely played a role. Although it’s understandable why US prosecutors asked for provisional arrest and extradition despite not having obtained an indictment for campaign-finance violations yet, it’s also understandable to me why the Bahamas wants to signal its expectation that the US comply with the treaty as written—especially where the argument that the first extradition was good enough for these charges is legally weak.
Note that the US could have asked for permission to proceed on other charges—see Article 14(b) of the treaty—but I think that may have required going back through the Bahamas legal system again, and probably delaying the trial. Hence, the prosecution severed off those charges, and then decided not to proceed after getting its conviction on others. I don’t know Bahamas campaign or extradition law, but there would also be difficulties if the offense was deemed one of a political character (Article 3(1)(a)) or was one that was not a criminal offense punishable by more than a year in prison under Bahamas law (Article 2(1)).
Also, I don’t think “completely uninvestigated” is a correct characterization—they were investigated enough to be presented to a grand jury, which indicted SBF for campaign-finance violations. Federal prosecutors do not generally indict without a pretty good investigation first, especially in high-profile cases. I think we have a pretty decent idea of what he did (see pp. 18-22 of the prosecution’s sentencing memo). Moreover, Salame and Singh—who don’t have extradition-related issues—pled guilty to campaign-finance violations.
Oh, that is interesting and an update for me. I had interpreted the relevant section of the memo as more of a “we didn’t really investigate it, but here is what we have”, but you know this stuff much better than I do.