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Did Sam Bankman-Fried get what he deserved?

Readers debate the convicted crypto fraudster's sentence.

By Letters to the Editor | 2024-04-04

Sam Bankman-Fried's parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, arrive at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse in Manhattan for their son's trial on Nov. 1. (Aristide Economopoulos for The Washington Post)

Regarding the March 29 front-page article "25 years in prison for FTX founder":

It is a travesty of justice in some ways that Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison while Donald Trump walks around freely. Mr. Bankman-Fried's trial and sentencing took place in a fraction of the time that it is taking to prosecute and try Mr. Trump. Mr. Bankman-Fried's crime was monetary. Mr. Trump was the president of the United States, took an oath to defend the Constitution, and was expected to have higher morals and actions in that role. His alleged offenses are far more varied -- including fraud and illegal possession and mishandling of national security documents, thus jeopardizing national security -- and stretch from before his presidency to after. For all of these potential crimes and misdemeanors, Mr. Trump most likely will get little, if any, jail time and might even get a second term as president. Mr. Bankman-Fried might not have been able to buy his way out of consequences for his actions. But the treatment of Mr. Trump also suggests that justice is not exactly blind.

Peter Dunner, Bethesda

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried's sentence was deserved. It does reveal, though, a bias toward traditional institutions when his punishment is compared with the relative lack of consequences for bankers and officials whose actions contributed to the real estate crash and subsequent global economic downturn.

David Steele, Regina, Saskatchewan

I think 25 years in prison is excessive and the wrong sentence for Sam Bankman-Fried, even realizing the heinous fraud he committed. What will this long sentence do to correct this crime or make him a better person? This immature entrepreneur made bad decisions and absolutely must repay the more than $11 billion he bilked from so many. But I think a shorter prison term in concert with a few years of community service and then ongoing monitoring would be the better approach.

He has already been appropriately shamed. In combination, repaying the money he owes, performing meaningful community service and serving some prison time should send a strong message to anyone wanting to commit a white-collar crime. Twenty-five years is excessive for someone with no previous record. There are people who have killed someone with shorter prison sentences.

Larrie Greenberg, Washington

The sentencing of Sam Bankman-Fried for charges related to fraud and money laundering ought to prompt close scrutiny of the money flowing into political campaigns. The Biden Victory Fund and the Maryland Democratic Party were both beneficiaries of his donations, as were many other candidates and organizations in both parties; some national Democratic organizations moved to return the money, which is a complicated process given civil litigation over the wreckage of Mr. Bankman-Fried's company. Accepting ill-gotten funds to influence elections is unethical, undermining democracy's core.

Transparency is paramount in handling political contributions. Voters deserve to know the true funding sources for candidates' political operations. Refusing to return tainted donations or redirecting them to charity to evade responsibility is insufficient. As many campaigns and organizations have done with Mr. Bankman-Fried's money, candidates who learn that contributions came from ill-gotten gains must promptly return such funds and fully cooperate with investigations.

While Mr. Bankman-Fried's trial is over, the reckoning over his influence must continue. Anyone who was willing to accept what turned out to be tainted donations should reflect what the ease with which Mr. Bankman-Fried bought influence and access says about a larger crisis of ethics.

Hampton E. Brown III, Fulton

Regarding the March 27 news article "Trump's mother-in-law came to U.S. via process he derided, records show":

I take issue with the implication that President Donald Trump's late mother-in-law would not have been allowed to live in the United States under the Raise Act that he advocated.

That would not be the case. While the Raise Act would have indeed taken the parents of immigrants "off the fast-track list" for green cards, it would have allowed those parents to apply for continuously renewable visitor visas good for five years at a time.

Few immigration restrictionists object to foreigners living in the United States, even on a quasi-permanent basis, to spend quality time with their children and grandchildren. We simply object to giving those individuals priority for green cards -- which entitle them to taxpayer-funded benefits, U.S. jobs and sponsorship of additional relatives for future green cards, a process known as "chain migration." Renewing the visitor visas that would have been created by the Raise Act might seem like an inconvenience, but it would have been an improvement on the shorter terms of current visitor visas and the correct balance for immigration policy as a whole.

Despite the quoted immigration attorney's suggestion that stopping chain migration was "some of the silly politics of the day," the idea wasn't original to Mr. Trump. Civil rights icon Barbara Jordan, who was chair of the Clinton-era U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, recommended that spouses and minor children of recent immigrants be prioritized for family-based green cards and that other relatives could try to qualify through alternate paths, such as their job skills. Jordan was hardly ever "silly."

Roy Beck, Arlington

The writer is the founder of NumbersUSA.

Regarding the March 28 news article "Appeals court continues to block Texas immigration law":

The crisis at our southern border involves more than managing the incoming flood of undocumented immigrants. It requires the country to think hard and collectively about where asylum seekers go, once they have crossed the border.

Concentrating the refugees in border states or sanctuary cities such as New York, San Francisco and Chicago hasn't worked. State and local services are overwhelmed by the unannounced busloads of people immediately needing shelter, food, clothes, health care and education.

Rather, we need to rally every community's school districts, religious institutions, Red Cross and Salvation Army aid workers, and private-sector businesses to work together to host a few families and guide them to jobs, financial independence and a stable legal status. Perhaps a single school or house of worship might take on no more than six families depending on the community's population.

The federal government should build a constantly updated national database listing potential destinations, the number and kind of job openings there, and the number of families a community can absorb at any one time. Buses would be scheduled according to destination, and migrants would have both choices about where to go and better information about what awaits them when they get there.

As an added benefit: If small numbers of migrant families arrive in English-dominant communities, the newcomers will have a strong incentive to learn English. This would improve their chances to thrive. At the same time, they would have the comfort of the other immigrant families supported by the community.

During World War II, American families helped the war effort in many ways, including by planting victory gardens and holding scrap drives. The nation rallied then, it can rally again. Even if this vision is ambitious, I hope it starts a conversation. What we are doing hasn't worked.

Ann Rauma Laciura, Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich.

Regarding the March 25 news article "Wealthy Sedona's answer to housing crisis: A parking lot to sleep in":

Could one answer to the housing crisis in the wealthy Arizona community described in The Post be dormitory-style housing? Surely that would be more affordable than traditional apartments, just as the "single-room occupancy" dwellings that were once common in American cities filled a valuable niche in urban housing markets. College dormitories are built and often developed by private companies so cities would not have to start from scratch in finding architects and contractors, though they might have to amend their zoning laws to provide for dormitories. Public opposition to such developments could be dampened by ensuring that these dormitories are zoned for areas that would otherwise have intensive uses such as warehouses and high-density housing. It should be quite simple to ensure that these are not built in traditionally low-density areas such as those zoned for single-family homes. In addition to meeting an immediate material need, dormitory-style housing could become the basis for communities so many Americans badly need.

Nicholas Kalis, McLean

Regarding the March 27 online news article "Kia invests in new compact car even though the segment is shrinking as Americans buy SUVs and trucks":

I was excited to read that Kia will offer a new K4 compact in the United States. I was disappointed, however, to discover the "compact" was over six feet wide. Automobiles have been bloating for decades. Compact and subcompact options are very limited in the North American market. Sport utility vehicles and trucks are crammed into parking spaces and block narrow roads. Larger vehicles are contributing to greater numbers of traffic fatalities. Meanwhile, European and Asian drivers can tootle around their cities in a Honda Jazz or the Toyota Aygo, both of which are roughly 51/2 feet wide. Even smaller city cars are available to the smart European consumer.

While light regulation is typically better, North American vehicles are too large for the existing roadways. Smaller cars stress the infrastructure less and can be nimble enough to avoid accidents with their behemoth counterparts. It's time for the Transportation Department to encourage automobile producers to open the North American market to smaller, narrower, shorter cars available to consumers elsewhere.

Chris Centner, Columbia


This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/04/04/sam-bankman-fried-sentence-harsh-lenient/


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