A court docket sentenced Sam Bankman-Fried, the fallen king of crypto, to 25 years in jail on Thursday. However whether or not he’ll serve all that point stays to be seen.
Whereas officers resolve which jail to ship Bankman-Fried to, jail consultants advised Enterprise Insider they suppose he has the prospect to make the most effective out of a nasty scenario — however provided that he can management his impulsiveness.
SBF’s subsequent steps might take weeks or months
On the sentencing in Manhattan federal court docket, US District Choose Lewis Kaplan mentioned he would advocate to the Federal Bureau of Prisons that it ship Bankman-Fried to a medium or low-security facility within the San Francisco Bay Space to permit simpler visits with his mother and father, who stay within the space.
It might take weeks for that call to be finalized. The size of his sentence would place Bankman-Fried on observe for a medium-security facility. However federal jail consultants advised BI that the Bureau of Prisons might grant a waiver for Bankman-Fried to be despatched to a low-security facility primarily based on his time already served and his eligibility for a 15% discount primarily based on good conduct.
“In my view, he will a low-security facility, to not a medium. It might be a PR catastrophe if he went to a medium and bought harm,” jail marketing consultant Sam Mangel advised BI. Bankman-Fried’s mother and father mentioned they had been fearful about their son’s security given his autism prognosis in their sentencing letters to the decide previous to studying his destiny.
“He might be topic to extortion, and it may be intimidating. I do not suppose he will have an issue with bodily hurt or rape or something like that. That is not what you see in a low, however it may be a reasonably intimidating place, particularly for such a younger man,” Mangel added.
What SBF’s days in jail may seem like
As soon as he’s designated to a low or medium-security facility, it might be weeks extra earlier than Bankman-Fried truly arrives at his new dwelling. Inmates are sometimes relocated to totally different services alongside the best way, touring by bus and airlift, mentioned Maureen Baird, a jail marketing consultant at Baird Perdue & Associates.
“It is not like they put him on a airplane and fly him from New York and he lands in California the identical day. It might take some time for him to get from Level A to Level B,” Baird mentioned. “It might be every week, weeks, or months.”
Mangel known as the method “diesel remedy” and mentioned he is seen it take so long as two months to move inmates, who must spend lengthy hours shackled on a bus with dozens of different inmates.
“It’s an uncomfortable, humiliating course of to undergo, particularly when you’re on the bus. You by no means know the place you are going to be stopping, and also you by no means know when you are going to get there,” Mangel mentioned. “For his mother and father and his family members to attempt to determine the place he’s, it is tough. The marshals, for safety functions, do not inform anyone.”
As soon as he arrives at his designated facility, day-after-day of the week will probably be strictly regimented, Baird and Mangel mentioned. In a low-security facility, which means waking up at 6 a.m. and tidying the cell or pod, reporting to work or courses for the day, and afterward, standing for an inmate depend, which is often adopted by dinner and recreation time. Inmates are sometimes locked in for the night time by 8:30 p.m.
Bankman-Fried will work and take First Step credit, that are anti-recidivism courses that additionally knock time without work of his sentence, Mangel mentioned.
“My suggestion is that he teaches courses. I feel inmates there can be thirsty to study among the issues that he might train,” Mangel mentioned. “He’ll wish to do issues to move the time.”
A spokesperson for Bankman-Fried declined to remark for this story.
It may require impulse management
If he is strategic, Bankman-Fried might get his sentence diminished by as much as eight years, Mangel mentioned. However that every one will depend on his impulse management in a facility that may little question have tempting contraband.
“What is going on to occur, when impulsively someone subsequent to him has an iPad or an iPhone, and he has entry to the web, or he could make telephone calls or issues like that?” Mangel mentioned. “He can get himself in numerous bother, and by doing that, he loses good time. He may get transferred to a higher-level safety facility. But when he is impulsive, the temptation may be there.”
On the sentencing listening to, Choose Kaplan underscored Bankman-Fried’s propensity for taking high-risk bets as one motive for the decadeslong sentence. Bankman-Fried had been toying with dangerous wagers — like pondering he might get away with one of many largest monetary crimes in fashionable historical past — since working as a younger skilled at Jane Avenue Capital, a buying and selling agency in New York, the decide mentioned.
“That was the sport. It began not less than as early as Jane Avenue, and it continued to the very finish. It is his nature,” Kaplan mentioned. “He regrets he made a really dangerous wager in regards to the probability of getting caught.”
