Judging Freedom - Sam Bankman-Fried in Court

Episode Date: December 19, 2022

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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, December 19th, 2022. It's about 11 o'clock in the morning. Wow, at the end of this week, it's Christmas already. And two weeks from today, hmm, begins the work week in the new year. Well, most of us have that Monday off. Sam Bankman Freed, an interesting case that a lot of you have been asking questions about. How is it that if he operated out of the Bahamas, he's being indicted by federal prosecutors in New York City? And why is he waiving extradition? Okay, so if you use the internet or the American banking system to defraud someone, or if the government claims that you have used the internet or the American banking system to defraud someone, somehow that goes through internet or banking systems in New

York. If you defraud someone and the act of fraud is perpetrated and carried out in the Bahamas, but you have a bank that's headquartered in New York, then prosecutors in New York can prosecute you. So that's basically how New York gets jurisdiction over Sam Bankman Freed. I don't know what bank he used. He probably used one of the four or five largest banks in the United States, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Chase. They all have major offices in New York. And it doesn't take much for the federal prosecutors to get jurisdiction in a white-collar crime case.

We're not talking about murder where you have to be tried with a gun, where you have to be tried where the trigger was pulled and the victim died. Here's little Chris again. Come on, buddy. There you go. All right, Chris, down from the camera. We're talking about the allegation of a grand scheme which affected people all over the United States. Where was Tom Brady when he decided to invest millions with Sam Bankman freed? Where was Shaquille O'Neal? Where was Steph Curry? Where was Naomi Osaka? Where was fill in the blank? As long as somebody was in New York, as long as some banking or internet transaction occurred in New York, the New York prosecutors have jurisdiction. Okay, now for

extradition. It's nearly impossible to fight extradition successfully. I only know of two ways in which it can be done. One is if you can prove that you are not the person that the government is looking for. So Sam Bankman Freed in a court in Bahamas would have to demonstrate to the satisfaction of a Bahamian judge that he's not Sam Bankman Freed. And that, of course, is not going to get him anywhere. The only other way that I know of to fight extradition is if you can show the extraditing court, the place where you are, that the place where they want you to go to has a penalty vastly out of proportion to the crime or vastly out of proportion to whatever would be the penalty where you are. Example, when Mario Cuomo, the father of

Andrew and Chris Cuomo, was the governor of New York, even though the death penalty was legal in New York, he was a fierce opponent of the death penalty. And if someone in New York was wanted for murder in a state that had the death penalty and they asked to have that person extradited, Governor Cuomo, Governor Mario Cuomo would not extradite that person to a state if they were exposed to the death penalty. So he would require the seeking state, the state that wanted that person to take the death penalty off the table. And if they wouldn't, then the extradition wouldn't go through. So those are the only two ways that I know of that you can successfully fight extradition. The penalty in the place that wants me is not a legal penalty here, or I'm not the person they're looking for. I look like them, I sound like them, but they made a

mistake. They arrested the wrong person. Neither of those would apply here. Add to that the deplorable condition of Bahamian jails, and Sam Bankman Freed decided, I might as well go to New York and resolve this. How can he resolve it? Well, if there's a jury trial and he's convicted of all the allegations against him, he'll never see the light of day again, unless he sees the light of day from an outdoor exercise prison yard. On the other hand, if he cuts a deal with the government he's 30 years old they might cut a deal for 20 years in jail and then set him free I don't know I'm just throwing that number out there but right now if he is convicted of every charge against him you're talking about more than 100 years in jail which under the federal system would be 80. He's 30 years old.

At almost any age, 80, any adult, 80 years is a life sentence. So we'll see what happens. I don't know who his lawyers are. I expect they're very fine lawyers. As you may know, both of Sam's parents are tenured professors at Stanford Law School. So both of his parents are lawyers. His father is the country's, this is interesting, foremost authority on the American tax system. The great Professor Bankman of Stanford Law School. More as we get it. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.