Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Lawyer Predicts Sam Bankman-Fried's Jail Time | FTX

Episode Date: May 27, 2023

Lawyer Predicts Sam Bankman-Fried's Jail Time | FTX

He's just got a backpack on. He's running away. And I'm like, dude, what a metaphor. He just puts what he can in his backpack and just runs for it. Hey, this is Matt Cox. I'm here with Josh America's lawyer. And we're going to be talking about FTX. And let's see. Yeah, basically the indictment and, you know, and the basic concept of innocent till proven guilty. And Josh's take on the whole thing and some of the new events that have taken place. So check this out. Listen, you know, I want to take this seriously. I really do. So, FTCS. Yeah, I mean, it's a serious, serious crime for a lot of people, right?

When that much money goes missing, there are some victims out there. There's some people who lost a lot of money. Yeah. Have you ever invested in crypto? No, I, so I'm a little bit too old. for crypto in my own mind. Like, I know there are people older than me who do it, but, like, I got traditional ways of losing money,

and crypto ain't one of them. I like that. I just, honestly, as much as people explain it to me, in the end, I keep saying, if it's not backed by anything. And they keep to, no, no, but they try and explain it in such a way that tells me that it is backed by, that it has value, that it's backed by something,

kind of and I'm like, yeah, but if I buy real estate, I can go there. Or if I buy stock, like, there's, it's connected to a factory someplace. Yeah, it may be volatile, but it is tied to something. Something. Yeah, I hear you, man. I have a brother-in-law who got a degree in electrical engineering. I use electricity. I'm very comfortable with the use of electricity. But every five or six years, I'll ask him, now explain to me one more time how electricity works and what's happening inside the wires. And he explains it to me. I'm like, that sounds like a crazy religion.

It can't possibly be true. And I have the exact same feeling when people explain crypto. When they explain it, it's like this little ecosystem. And you're like, okay, yeah, that kind of makes sense. I kind of get it. Okay. Then that person leaves the room. And I'm like, oh, I lost it.

It's like, puff, it's gone. It's crazy. I'm not in. I'm anti-crypto. Yeah, I'm not. I'm just not in. favor of it or i just don't i just don't understand i just don't understand so i do think that we will have a currency but it will be backed by a government and we'll move that way maybe sooner than later

in fact i was i made a joke about this i don't know if i told you this but i have a video coming out on friday on my channel about sbf and f tx and one of the points that i make is he's going to go to prison for so long that if he ever does get out, we will probably all be using some government-backed crypto by the time he gets out, but he won't be a part of it. I was, you know, it, okay, but yeah, I also, once again, I think that that, I also think that a government-backed crypto is like, it's like the dollar. Like, it's not, we're not on the gold standard.

It's really just saying, hey, we're good for. it, but it's the government. Yeah. Like they, they are good for it in some way. Yeah. And because it's the currency that large corporations use, including the banking system, they need stability. And it, money is a little bit like a gentleman's agreement.

Like, there's no there there, except that we all say there's there's there. Yeah. And so there is something there. And it's just, man, it's not that way with crypto, which it doesn't have to mean that it's pyramidy and it doesn't have to mean that it's a scam. It is going to mean that it's volatile, though. Yeah, well, it feels that way. But all right, so, so FTX. So real quick, how I kind of gave a prediction that he's probably going to jail between 15 to 20 years. if he maybe if he pled guilty now a lot of people are saying you know oh it's got to be 125 or 100 and so i i kind of thought and the only reason i think this is because he's not bernie made off he it didn't start off as a as a pyramid i mean i'm sorry as a ponzi scheme you know it it got out of control he's an idiot and he made a bunch of bad mistakes and probably tried to cover for it and it collapsed very very quickly and all the

it's a ton of money, I still think that if he goes in and pleads guilty, he might end up getting 15 to 20 years. Some people are saying, oh, no, you know, he's going to get the whole, the max he can get. But if he goes in and works with him and says, look, I'm going to help try and recoup some of this money. Let's, I'll tell you exactly what happened. Although I understand his, his co-defendants are already cooperating. It's that ship has sailed. He could still make things easier for him. yeah yeah so i i tend to agree with you if your assessment is there's not going to be some long protracted trial at the end of this case right i don't i don't see that happening with his co-defendants having turned on him um there's there's not a lot for him to offer i mean his

commitment to restitution to your point uh which he actually made a big show of it i don't know if you picked that up at all but he had uh i don't know if it's a press conference or press release or a tweet or whatever it was. But he basically gave the the O.J. Simpson speech, you know, post acquittal for O.J. where he says, I'm committing the rest of my life to go find the killer or killers, right? Well, he says, I'm committing the rest of my life to find where all this money went and to get it back for the customers. Well, you know, unbeknownst to us, his co-conspirators had already told the heads where the money went, which was that he, the bankman knew where it went.

Yeah, that's the shortest book ever written, OJ Simpson's book, My Search for the True Killers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dude, he's exhausted. He's looked on every golf course he can find and no one has confessed to the crime. So it's, I don't know. Okay. Wait, is it okay to make fun of OJ on this channel?

Yeah, it's fine. Okay, okay, I didn't know. I actually know somebody who knows him who's like friends, like to pick him up and he'll answer the phone. And I was like, uh, um, he was a gifted running back. I'll say that. He was. Like I, like I listen, I say this all the time. Like I, I, it's like nowadays, if you disagree with one thing that somebody says, if they disagree with you, then they don't want anything to do with you. You know, I compartmentalize. You know, I was like I was in prison. So. you very quickly realize like, hey, I like this guy. He's funny. He's fun to talk to. Don't lend him money. You know, don't let it. You know, you very quickly, there's, you put people in certain categories. Like, he's good for this. He's good for that. This guy you can borrow from, you know,

he's good about it. This guy will show up and beat you up if you don't get it from commissary at the right time. You know, you very quickly compartmentalize. So, you know i said this the other day i said like casey anthony you know casey anthony you remember yeah yeah the mom down in your neck of the woods right she seemed like she'd be a lot of fun like i would date casey anthony we're not going to have kids she can't babysit like if she's like hey i was going to watch your sister's kids i'd be like casey you know you can't walk you know but she seems like it'd be a lot of fun to be around yeah i you know you're not describing for you really are describing the type of psychosis maybe this compartmentalization is maybe a little bit

extreme i was going to say there's like guys at my gym that i like to play basketball with but like i'm not going to have them over for dinner and i'm definitely not going to loan my car to him right right yeah yeah yeah they're like there were there guys in prison that i i love to play risk with you know but i don't want them living in my neighborhood yes i'm knowing where i live like i've i've met guys that are like you know hey yeah and my girlfriend's like hey you should have him on the podcast and i'm like eh not the kind of guy you want to bring to the house you know nice guy he's great to talk to if you bump into him at the mall um all all right so sorry sam bank no no no i mean you're not wrong it's like uh you know there's a there's a there's

the guy that cuts the stakes at my grocery store, he actually does a really great job of it. I don't know anything else about him, and maybe that's for the best, because maybe I wouldn't want to get steak from him if I knew, like, how he spent the other 160 hours of the week. Yeah, yeah, that's probably, yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's good. Yes. So, what else? What about, So your take on Sam Baintman-Fried. So he, I got, I brought the indictment with me today because I just want to talk through it and make sure we're talking about the same thing. This is, these may sound familiar to you. I don't know, but you got conspiracy to commit wire fraud on customers.

Did, did you nail that one? I know it well. Not on customers, just commit, just conspiracy to commit wire fraud. More, more, you're a generalist. Okay. wire fraud on customers, right? So that's kind of the other side of the coin on the conspiracy. Then conspiracy to commit wire fraud on lenders and then wire fraud on lenders.

So for you, these four charges would be dropped down into just two buckets, I guess. Yes. I have conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud. Yeah. Okay. Conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, that's not your neck of the woods. No, no. Yeah.

Closest I got the like bank fraud. I got bank fraud. Okay. So, okay. So he says, well, I see your bank fraud and I'll raise you a conspiracy to commit securities fraud and also, oh, oh yeah, but apparently he, well, I don't think he, they didn't charge him with securities fraud, just conspiracy. And then conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Did you get that one? Yes. Well, I just got money laundering. Pardon? I just got money laundering. Oh, okay. You didn't work with anyone on that one? No, I do that myself.

A bit of a self-starter. Yeah. I don't like that. They don't look well with others. And then conspiracy to defraud the United States and violate the campaign finance laws. Now, I have conspiracy to commit wire fraud against the United States. Oh. yeah okay yeah that was the first treasure i ever got yeah and then so so those are the eight counts

of of his indictment uh i would say um the the the purest of the pure white collar like you can't actually get a more white collar indictment than this right this is this is pretty highfalutin if you if you haven't been down this road before um the the the a lot of of these criminal indictments also contain a paracriminal count, which is the, which is the forfeiture allegation. And it's a little bit convoluted, but the, uh, the U.S. attorney in this instance will lay the framework for starting a civil forfeiture action against the money or value or property that you acquired through the means of the alleged criminal acts and criminal conspiracies. It doesn't play itself out inside the criminal action, but they, it's like the

teaser or the trailer for a movie. They stick it in there, and then they start a civil action once they actually have money that they've identified that they are ready to go after. And in his indictment. They don't say we've got our eye on this account or that account or, you know, this basket of gold or whatever. They just say there, we will, we will go seek forfeiture of his ill-gotten gains, allegedly ill-gotten gains, right? Right. Okay. He's innocent until proven I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, allegedly. We can still, yeah, why not say allegedly? Yeah, so I, I like to chuckle a little bit when, especially journalists, they're very careful to talk about alleged this and alleged that, right? They don't want to defame anyone, which that's great.

But sometimes we misapply the alleged angle. So let's say you have a murder victim, and the journalists will say, you know, he was alleged. murdered by Don Cook or whatever the guy's name is. And, well, I guess that could be a woman's name too. But he's allegedly murdered by Don Cook. And then later in the article, they call him the alleged victim. The guy that's definitely murdered, he's an alleged victim. Well, he's not.

I mean, he's dead. He's a victim by somebody. Yeah, he's a victim by somebody. Yeah. Um, no, so like to your point earlier, um, his maximum charge is, uh, I'm sorry, his maximum sentence totals to 115 years. Uh, he's 30 years old. Uh, just based on the size of his hair, I would say he's healthy. I don't think without good nutrition, you can grow ahead of hair like that. Um, but I don't think you can live to be 145.

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So we're making progress. 130? But actually, in your experience, What is a, let's say he pleads, right? And he says, yeah, I'm going to cop to everything. I don't want to, I don't want to hide anymore. Let's get down to business. How much time you guys got to give me?

What's he going to get out of 115? It's way less, right? Like closer to 50 or 40 or 30? Well, I would think they would give him, he would accept, like, he would accept 20. Like, I would think they would offer him like 20 years. You take a plea. You help them. us recoup funds, you help us explain the whole situation. Maybe there are people he can

he can cooperate again. I think probably he could probably just get the max of 20, you know, just because otherwise he could drag out of trial for months and months and months. I mean, in my experience, there are times when someone's facing a bunch of time. And the and the, the prosecutor will offer them something, you know, whatever. They say. 30 years. And it's like, okay, like they're wanting me to admit to all of these things. But if I go to trial, I can mitigate my, you know, I can mitigate my role and maybe I can get less than that. I know I'm guilty. I'm going to be found guilty. But I'll, I'll focus on I only did this. I only did that. I didn't do this. And I can prove that in the court.

So you're not, you're not pleading guilty. But when you actually make your factual presentation to the jury, which you're going to need to do on the stand, you're going to cop to some of it. Yeah, I'm saying sometimes that's the fact. They'll do it just because they're like, look, they're offering me 30. But if I do, if I can get rid of a couple of these, I can get it down to 15 or 20. So sometimes, for instance, Elizabeth Holmes. Yes. Like, like, let's, let's face it, the thing about the reason these two remind me of one another is that I don't believe that either one of them started out thinking, this is a complete fraud. I'm going to take a bunch of money.

Like Elizabeth Holmes apparently convinced the jury that she had noble intentions. She believed she could pull it off. She believed that the technology could be created and it was out there. She faked it until she made it. But it was never her intention to commit a complete fraud. And I believe that Sam Bateman-Fried is in that same category, as opposed to Bernie Madoff, who was always a Ponzi scheme. It was always a fraud.

Madoff was never real even at the beginning? I don't think so. I don't think so. I think if it was, no, I think if it was, it was for a very short period of time. So first of all, I want to ask your permission before I do my Elizabeth Holmes impersonation. May I?

Sure. Matt, I really appreciate you saying that I have good intentions at the beginning. Okay, that's all I got. You know, do you disagree? No, so I saw an interview with one of her Stanford professors who, you know, she has a great mythology, right? Like, that's one of the reasons that people bought into her. They wanted to believe her. It's like, well, here's this attractive young lady.

She's so smart. she's so well spoken and she has this story of you know wanting to drop out of Stanford and change the world and make make medical care cheaper for everyone right that's like something you can really latch on to i get it steve jobs she wants yeah and yeah and she even like dressed up with the shirts and stuff right um she's about to drop out she's talking to like a biochemistry professor or maybe it's an an MD at Stanford and she tells them. So the goal here, I'm going to drop out and do this, a prick of blood, and we're going to run all these tests. And she told her at the time, that can't work because the tests are not

theoretical. You actually use the material from the drop of blood. Like you use it up in a test and you can't do any more tests. And I really, I know where you're coming from, where you want say that people have good intentions you can harmonize those things you can say okay um an expert who truly knew told her it can't be done and she just said well this is my disney moment you got to believe miracles happen if i can get the funding we'll figure out a way to make it happen right right and then um kind of uh trouble begets trouble right and you once you get on the path you may find that you need to stay on the path because the only off-ramp involves an encounter with law enforcement, right? Right. And so you just play it out as long as you can. But those

stories, in her case, of them getting the samples, sending them off to traditional labs to have the test work done, getting them back, and then presenting them as their own, that doesn't answer your issue because your issue was it could have started out innocently enough right um but that that fraud was real but she didn't get that much time but that was that was way down the line yes that was way down the listen and and i admittedly by that point she knew you know by that point but by that point she's probably just holding out hope can we just hold out long enough maybe we can you know at that point she's probably just too deep into it she knows she's done but she obviously convinced the jury that it wasn't a fraud from the very beginning it it became a fraud but it she had

she had the correct intention so it wasn't a scam from the very beginning and she didn't get that much time like i know 20 years yeah so who doesn't if she doesn't who does okay so spf is uh oh sitting over in the corner saying ah hopefully not me because he actually can uh paint a narrative where it was, the first mistake was so stupid, but it was an innocent mistake and it got out of hand. And here it is, you ready? They have all this cash inside of FTX, and it's not doing anything. And they don't need it because crypto hasn't crashed,

so it's just sitting there. Alameda makes a bad investment. Alameda has liquidity problems, and they say, well, we have so much cash at FTX and the only way we would ever not have what we need would be like if crypto just completely crash and that will never happen and you're telling us you only need a few million dollars so we will cede you right now we're just going to it's just off the books we're just going to move a little money over there your next move will be great you'll bounce back you'll give us the money back and then everything's fine no one never knew and it's fine right

Seems very reasonable. No, I know, yeah, it's reasonable, but isn't that like, unless he started out with an intent to defraud, which if he did, he did that very poorly, isn't that likely how it started? Yes. Okay. So that is something that if I'm his lawyer, I'm like, well, you know, I can probably take you to a jury with that. He's been known to cure insecurity. just with his laugh. His organ donation card lists his charisma.

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Right. Yes, I messed up, but I want you. you to know i didn't mean to do it and once i did it and then the next and then that alameda investment went bad they need a little more money then the the crypto price starts to go down and well that that's how most of these hedge funds you know um what is his name sam israel ran a hedge fund i think it was was it bio investment or you know bio yeah um from new Orleans or something Anyway, hey, Google that. I want to know who that was.

Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. His, he just, you know, he had a bad month. And he thought, okay, I made a mistake. We lost a little bit of money. But if I tell my investors, then, you know, if I tell my investors that I had a bad month, they're going to pull out.

So I'm going to tell them we made a little bit of money. And it collapses. Right. Well, and then the next month, he had a bad month. What is? But now he's already forged the month. statements. So he forges the next one. He tries to borrow more money. He has another bad month. Then he maybe has a good month or he break even month. Then he has another bad month. Before you

know it, he's so deep in it. It becomes a Ponzi. You know, he thought, I'll break the law this one time, but I'll fix it. Well, when he wants to fix it, it just compiled. And the next thing, you know, it collapses. And, you know, so to me, that's like, did you make a mistake? Did you break the law? Absolutely. But that's different than, then someone like me going in and saying I'm going to build an enterprise I'm going to I'm going to create a complete you know a complete long con and I'm going to get everybody to invest and I'm going to walk away with 300 million dollars and there was never any trades and I'm forging all the bank statements and all the monthly trading statements and everything else and I'm going to walk

away with 300 million dollars like that is a guy that deserves the maximum them like you can pile up the charges on that guy yeah um yeah you're right it was the the bayou or bio hedge fund where i live we call it a bayou but i think some people say bio i don't know no yeah by you you're right i mispronounce it a few years back now it's probably been five years maybe uh a lawyer in my home city got arrested for he took uh uh over four hundred thousand dollars from his client trust account and i thought that's really odd like who thinks they're going to get away with that right i read the uh uh the charge i think he had it was in federal court because they ended up charging with um some kind of wire fraud conspiracy

in connection with an email that he wrote okay and um the the indictment explains that um like the first month, he borrowed, or not borrowed, took $2,000 out of the trust account, comes back a month later, takes $500. Three months later, takes $5,000. Well, over the course of a few years, between $500 and $5,000 over and over and over until all the money's gone. Well, it wouldn't have set out to do that, right? Because if you're going to do that you would just take the money early on. And I think it's one of those things like you're talking about where you think, well, I'm just going to, I just bend the rule a little bit. I'll be fine. Right? Yeah, I don't get that that taking it a little bit at a time because what's your

long term plan? How was it going to pay it back? I mean, that doesn't. Oh, yeah. So he's going to have a better month at his office and he'll just put the money back in that trust account and no one will ever know yeah to me you know i i if i'm going to go fraud let's just wipe that whole account out let's just take it and go because there's got to catch up with you but you'd be shocked how many how many scams are out there how many of these guys do this and it never catches up yeah um yeah especially with attorneys oh really i mean i i oh absolutely definitely think so a lot of your money's so you can lie to your client and say oh the judge ruled against us we lost your case in the meantime you signed a settlement agreement for them you got

a million dollars and you spent it like um um michael avanatti avonetti uh he's in the news for something like that right have you seen have you seen his charges who is that oh you'll remember this guy. He was this bald, shaved-headed, like kind of high-profile plaintiff's lawyer who represented Stormy Daniels and his mission. Yes, you remember now. His mission was to take down Donald Trump. Well, like, he was just a scam artist according to these criminal allegations. And he may have already been convicted in one trial and he has other charges pending, but one of them was like this. He settles a case for a client, and they're supposed to pay, like, $2 million six months from, the defendant's supposed to pay $2 million six months from then. The money comes in.

You know what he tells his client? They never paid. Just like that. Thought it was going to be okay. Yeah. I'm writing them letters. I'm trying to get the money. Wow.

Okay? But he already had the money. He was using it to cover losses somewhere else, and it's just a shell game. where you're just moving stuff around. But if the music stops, which is kind of what happened in the real estate meltdown, right, the music stopped, you figure out who's got the assets and who doesn't. And this Bankman Freed thing is the same. To your point, if crypto doesn't crash, if the Alameda investments go fine,

and they give, Alameda puts the money back into FTX. this never happens no harm no foul no harm no foul because to your point just like that hedge fund you were talking about where are the regulators where's the oversight it's crypto it's like it's like the wild wild west yeah i wonder listen you know i can't i mean this is out of the blue but you imagine the stress oh this guy's got to be like like what do i do i do i do and there's nowhere he can go like i know i got a bunch of people mentioning like i can't believe they gave him bond where's he going he's not going anywhere like this guy can't go anywhere he's got to show up for court he could only hurt himself by being out so um i don't know uh

if you've seen this but there's some footage of someone after things started going sideways someone tried to interview him or confront him or something and there's a shot of him running away with a backpack on have you seen this footage no oh i bet colby can find it and um and stick into the video if he wants but there's this shot of him in a parking lot up against some apartment buildings i think it's in the bahamas or wherever it was that he's living he's just got a backpack on he's running away. And I'm like, dude, what a metaphor. He just puts what he can in his backpack and just runs for it and hopes that he makes it. But I mean, I mean, yeah, to your point, he's he's tied to the tracks. He is tied to the tracks. I think his only chance, I mean, he could have gone on the

run. I mean, not that he wouldn't be recognized, but I mean, if he were to go and get plastic surgery, that might help him a little bit if he went to a South America somewhere. had a bunch of money. Like, I still think they would have caught up with him. Shaved his head, lost some weight, got a nose job. Were you ever in a situation? I really think, honestly, just shaving the head would be enough because no one's ever looked at his face.

No. They just look at his hair. They're like, oh, yeah, that's the puffy-haired guy. Yeah. Were you ever in a situation where you were like, I got to go somewhere where there's no extradition? You know, here's the problem with me, is that I'm extremely arrogant.

I know you don't see that. I know that so far you think, no, he seems like a humble guy. But believe it or not, you know, I was much worse before. So, yeah, I genuinely thought that I was never going to get caught. And so I stayed in the United States because I had multiple passports.

I had driver's licenses. For real. Oh, yeah. You were that guy. Oh, listen, I've had, I've had two dozen passports in different names. I've had 27 driver's licenses and state IDs from seven different states. With different names and stuff. Oh, yeah.

All legitimate. All issued by the state, all issued either the passports were obviously issued by the state department. And the local state DMVs, I've had, I've had, I've had driver's licenses in, you know, in Florida, in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Nashville, Tennessee. You're an SEC criminal. You're a Southeast conference. So, and listen, I got, I would get, I would get, I've been pulled over and gotten traffic tickets. Like, I got so many traffic tickets in one guy's name. I thought I was going to lose his license. So I went to traffic school as him. So he wouldn't lose his, lose his license. You know, I had two

cars. Is that for real? Yeah. I had two hours in his name. I had an apartment in his name. Like, I can't lose this guy's license. Wait, is that so he wouldn't lose his license or so you wouldn't lose his license that you were using? Yeah, so I wouldn't, yeah. Yeah, okay. Then what am I going to do? I mean, I've got a bunch of vehicles.

So, but you did all this before social media. So you were never, like, tempted to, like, be drunk and, like, post some pictures of you with all your passports? No, no. Okay. No. I believe me. I was on the run for three years. And I got, I got a nose job.

I had a facelift, what's called a mini facelift, liposuction, two hair transplants. I mean, I desperately was trying to not get recognized. Still ended up getting caught. Huh. Three? What, from when you were on the run, what, for the, for the, for the, for, for, for, at the beginning of that three years, did your daily stress level go down as time passed, or did it go up because you're like, well, obviously, I'm going to get caught eventually.

No, I genuinely didn't think I was going to get caught. I actually, I mean, I wasn't stressed at all, but I had, I had documentation. Like, I had, you know, I had IDs. I had passport. So the police pulled me over. I didn't think the cop was going to recognize me. okay like I'm just handing my driver's license and he comes back to the ticket and that's it and I sign it thanks no problem and I leave I mean I'm not stupid I'm not driving around in a stolen vehicle with a broken taillight and a body in the trunk I mean it's the car's in my name it's got full coverage insurance you know I it's in the name that I'm that I haven't driver's license in it's a valid driver's license but Sam Bateman freed his picture would be everywhere Yeah. Yeah. His picture would be everywhere, number one. And number two, wasn't he a little bit of a celebrity even before?

In crypto? Things went bad for him? You mean in crypto? Yeah. In the crypto community, he was huge. Yeah. Well, I mean, the crypto community is a lot of people, right? Right. Yeah. He would have needed some major plastic surgery and had to go somewhere. even still if it had if he could lay low for a couple of years the big problem with being on the run is that you know you're lonely you're starting over it's you know you want to reach out to your family you want to reach out to your friends you want to know what's going on you want so you have to be able to you have to be able to pick up move cut ties with everybody and and re insert yourself into a community and start up your entire life again and never look back

and that's difficult to do. Yeah, I watched a video recently about the guys who, for years, people thought maybe they escaped from Alcatraz, and, you know, FBI said, no, they didn't. But then some facial recognition technology in 2014 said, yeah, this picture of these guys from the 70s, this was them kind of, as it was presented was, yeah, these guys got out. and the law enforcement were sitting on their parents for it was two brothers they were sitting on their parents the rest of their lives and they never came and saw them never they never connected with the parents you know that's a problem so here's the problem here's the issue what when people say oh like did you ever like i only saw the movie i'm sure there's a book but escape from new york i'm sorry escape from new york i'm sorry escape from Alcatraz with Clint Eastwood? Didn't see it. So, you know, I believe it's three or four guys escape. Yeah, there were four guys trying and three of them made it.

Okay. Well, you know, and they were never picked up and never seen again. And everybody likes to say, oh, they made it. And of course, the police and, you know, the marshals and everybody say, no, they drowned trying to escape. I think they drowned. Here's why. Like, these guys were career criminals. Do you think that they were going to get out, go get a job at a factory?

Like, first of all, they're getting out with nothing. Did they go to their families? Their families probably would have given them up or at least said yes, they were here. Instead, so they would have had to have gotten out, had a support system, been able to reinsert themselves into society, needed identification, and then never started from scratch and never committed a crime again. three of them that's just not i just don't see that being possible yeah so uh there was a one of the three guys uh contacted the fbi and said i've got cancer i'm 85 i'm the guy who did who

escaped i really need to get medical treatment uh can we work out a deal i have to see this yeah i'll send you a link to it it's a good it's a good video you know it's not it's not conclusive the the the maker of it's not swearing this is what happened but most probably uh this photo of these of the brothers from Brazil in the mid 70s which would be like you know 15 years later uh the the computer says this is these guys but 15 years older it's fascinating and these are some of the guys that escaped from i mean that's how they present it i would love to see that yeah i'd I'll do you. Maybe we put a link in the, in the description of this video. Anybody can watch it, right?

Yeah. It's like D.B. Cooper. Like, what happened to D.B. Cooper? Dude, the easiest explanation is usually the right one, right? Right. And so it's probably untimely ends for most people. Yeah. So what were the other charges on the indictment?

This is, we're all over the place. What was the other, um, what was the other indictment on, uh, FTX? I mean, what were the other charges? So apparently they, they want to charge him separately for, and not want to. They have charged him separately for, uh, defrauding the lenders and defrauding the customers. Um, and I haven't looked into it, but my guess is if we go back in, time 15 years or so, we'll see that they change those criminal statutes to bifurcate

those charges so that it's not just the generic one that you got, which is the conspiracy to commit wire fraud, because they want to be able to prove different things, probably to make it easier to win one or the other type of case for the prosecutor. and then, you know, you would hope if you're just a regular guy living out on the street that there's an enhancement for the punishment for defrauding customers, right? Because those are the people who generally can't afford to be defrauded. Whereas the lenders, you know, I mean, no one should defraud lenders, but I mean, the lenders are operating at a pretty nice profit most of the time.

I mean, obviously there's enhancements for the amount of victims and the dollar amount, you know, and vulnerable victims, or were they vulnerable victims, you know? Yeah. If you're investing in crypto, you're probably not a vulnerable victim and whether or not he was, they targeted, targeted those customers or not. I don't think you guys were. His indictment is just as plain and, like, uninspiring read. like it's it's it's it's really boring it just kind of recites the sections of the code um if there's like something to enjoy about the indictment is that they aka him they're like samuel bankman freed aka s bf which like there's no legal reason to do that his his name is not spf his name is samuel

bankman freed and if knowing what i know about how lawyers think uh uh this is the U.S. attorney just having a little fun, like, because the fact that he's known by his initials is kind of hilarious. They even put it in the style of the case. I don't know if you'll be able to see it on here, but it says Samuel Bankman Fried, aka SBF. Yeah. Yeah. But that's his brand, right? And he had a narrative that he was out there promoting that he was, you know, the, the wizard of crypto and uh who it wasn't all that apparently what what do you think what do you think his his uh his ex-girlfriend the co-conspirate and the the other co-doze what do you think they end up with oh um man so as you know i haven't represented uh a defendant in a criminal case in a

really long time it's not my area i'm a civil litigation guy um but i just think it can't be more than like five or eight years like it's a very big fraud but they help they help bring it down what what do you think you're the guy you're supposed to know yeah i mean i think you're right I think five or six years, you know, it, I mean, you know, there has to be, you know, an incentive for people to come in. So if they came in and said, you know what, you were still a huge part of this, you're going to get 20 years and we're going to knock off five for your cooperation. You'll get 15 years. Then it's like, oh, my God. Like, there was no, there was no huge benefit there. So I think giving them five years and they're out in what, two and a half, two, two and a half.

Yeah, if I'm their lawyer, I'm saying, look, I get it. You charged us with all these crimes. Look, it's one crime, right? We found, you found a bunch of statutes that we violated, but it was one cohesive, coherent scheme, which is that we were, you know, moving money out of customers' accounts. and wasting it on things that we shouldn't have done it on. It's not, it isn't all these, I mean, legally it's all these counts, but it's not like, it's not a crime spree in the same sense that like you didn't go to

one address and punch somebody and then drive across town and knife somebody. And then wait three weeks, drive 100 miles and shoot somebody. It's not like that. It was one little ecosystem of really stupid, illegal, bad decisions. And then because the way the code is written, they're able to charge it eight ways. And so to your point, Elizabeth Holmes fought tooth and nail, never admitted any fault. And she only got 11 years, right? Yeah.

And she didn't flip on anybody. She didn't give them anything. She did cry the victim. Oh, yes, yeah. But that was, yeah, that was part of her defense also, not just for sentencing, right? Yeah. She was manipulated by Sonny the entire time, the mean older boyfriend that, you know, she was in danger. She was scared.

She was, stop, stop. You got full-time bodyguards. The guy wasn't even there half the time. Yeah. And so like you were saying, she never. she never flipped on anyone. She never helped out. She never took accountability. She offered the U.S. attorneys nothing. And the number two and number three people in SBF's fraud, they handed them, they handed the feds, SBF on a silver platter or wooden coffin or whatever you want them to be

served up on. Maybe it's less than five years. Yeah, that's possible. But, Yeah. Anyway, I'm going to go with five years, but whatever. We'll see. Maybe you're right. Maybe it's three. Maybe it's four. Yeah. Look, whatever, whatever they get. If they get five, they're going to do four on five. They're going to get a year off. They're going to say they had a drug problem. They clearly do. There's lots of drugs involved. They're going to get a year off for the, what's the ARDAP program. If they can pass it that, you know, now we're down to three. They're going to get six months to a year halfway house. I mean, my God. That you're, you're there. for two years, it's almost not worth unpacking. I mean, two years, they're in a halfway house. You know, they've written their memoir during that time. I mean, it's, you know, they'll get out and be on a speaking tour. And then... Ethics and fraud tour.

Yeah. And like you have said, if they forgive, if they repent, if they apologize, seek forgiveness America is just going to be like yeah sure right this is the land of second chances oh I think they'll be in a very real way

they'll have a little following they'll almost be celebrities to some people I don't know how yeah I'm not sure how you can knock them you know if they go in there and listen prison is

it is a great equalizer you know they will be next to people that grew up in the projects that never had a chance and that that had that were prostituted and molested and just you know just had horrible upbrings never had a chance and hopefully they get real real humble and real appreciative of what they have and they come out with a vastly different attitude and honestly two or two or three years will do that to you you don't need ten two or three years will do that hopefully that's what happens with you know sam bankman freed and

he goes in and the same thing and you know i don't know maybe it could maybe prison can be a good experience for him can i ask you a question about your experience sure um my assumption is that there is a certain type of person where any meaningful time in prison is going to um give them the opportunity to turn themselves around and say, you know what? I was wrong before. I'm going to get on the right track now. And it's real. And it might be a year or whatever, two years, might be less. I don't know. Then there's another type of person. It doesn't matter how long they're in there. There's not, they're not going to have that moment. Yes, absolutely. That's probably 95% of the population. They just won't have that moment. They won't, you know, if they do, it's maybe it's

fleeting, you know, they get out, things get hard. They go right back to what they know. Yeah. So is there a, is there a meaningful way for the people who are evaluating early release, parole, the extra credit items that you talked about earlier? Is there a meaningful way for those people to interact with the inmate to figure out reliably? Yeah, we got someone who's on the right path now? I mean... So, you know, there, there is a program, like I mentioned, called ARDAP, and it's, you know, it's supposed to be the residential drug, you know, is it drug addiction, drug addiction program or drug, I don't know, whatever. It's some kind of drug program, but the truth is, really drugs have nothing to do with it. It's more of a behavior modification program.

Okay. And in that program, you know, you have to go through a series of, of there's different, you know, stages of the program. And I think during that process, you definitely learn a lot about yourself. And I'm sure that the, the people, the doctor that was in charge of the program I was a part of, she was very good. I mean, people would come in and they would be great and they would be wonderful. And she would say, and you would see a guy that was sailing through the program. he was doing all the right things and she would tell you he'll be back in prison and within three years and just like why and she's going well he's faking it okay yeah that's exactly what

i was asking like if there's an interaction that where there's a pretty high degree of confidence about this this guy has hasn't figured out and has it turned around or this guy doesn't yeah listen she could and she could call it she'd see somebody else and she'd go he's actually going through something this guy has a chance of getting out and never reoffending oh wow you know she was really good at it and I genuinely think um I genuinely think she was amazing at it she was she was she was really really good super you know she was also super arrogant but very smart very smart and it's funny I used to say because she was attractive but I used to say listen you know she's a six but the moment she starts talking she becomes a nine like she

was just so overwhelmingly brilliant she was it was you were taken in by her there is a there's something about people who are good at their craft or their vocation or their profession which is inspiring like uh even if it's like watching somebody change the oil on your car and they're they're good at it and you can tell they're good at it or um you know when you get your hair cut It's like, it's inspiring to see people who are actually good at the thing that they're doing. They're not just going through the motions. They're like, they really get it. I love seeing that.

And it really doesn't matter what the work is. So if you see it in a counselor or, you know, the guy mowing your lawn running a weed eater, whatever, I love it. I love excellence and however you see it in whatever profession. Yeah, she was, she was good. Listen, a lot of the, they had, they called them drug treatment. specialist you know what's funny about that is that we almost in that program you almost never talk about drugs it was almost never about drugs you never it was all about you know rational self analysis it was about um you know it was about you know evaluating your decisions it was what's

behind that decision what's important what's not you know so it was it was a it was a great club i don't think anybody that went through that you couldn't go through that course without learning a lot. And the recidivism rate for people that pass that course is half of what a normal inmate that got out was. And I think a course like that, you definitely could determine who's probably coming back and who's not coming back to a fairly good certainty. The problem is, of course, the course is expensive. And are the inmates paying for it? No. No, the government's paying for it but in the end they just can't put everyone in it right right it would be great if they could i used to always say listen you shouldn't be allowed to leave prison until you pass this course

yeah like i i just thought it was it was an amazing it was it was amazing to see these guys and look but the truth is some things you just can't you know you're taking a lot of these guys you're putting them right back in the same environment and everybody in that environment doesn't want to see them succeed you know you know there's one person that wants to see you succeed you and that's your mother and all your buddies don't want to see you get out and then you're embarrassed where do you work you got to go work at McDonald's you have to be embarrassed you're embarrassed and your friends you know they mock you instead of saying hey you're doing the right thing and helping you and you know I so I just think it's just such a horrible cycle that I don't know

how to break that without breaking the budget uh so a lot of people in society frame drugs as a problem, then there's some people who say, no, drugs are a symptom. People are using drugs because they have other things going on that they're trying to get away from other problems that are more in their life, in their mind, in their soul. And it sounds like this program tended more towards treating the problem behind the drugs. Absolutely. Everything you just said is I i think is absolutely true like you know listen i've met guys that if they'd been born into any other environment would be CEOs or you know or they would be they'd be running their own business but the problem is everybody you know that's successful in your neighborhood is a drug dealer

yeah nobody's there to teach you how to run a business nobody's there to and i'm not saying people don't escape some people escape but most of them don't yeah a lot of times by the time they do get their shit together now you're 35 years old you got out of prison you've got multiple felonies hell it's hard to just get a job let alone try and start your own business or start over unless and i'm just throwing this out there you go get a youtube account and you start posting podcasts about your experiences in prison that's true but it's true but i work i actually there's the thing about that is i actually worked like the whole time i was in prison i mean i was writing yeah i was i was setting myself up

for my second act a second act that i didn't think was going to happen what i thought was i don't know how this became about me but what i thought it's my fault um i was okay what i thought was i'll get out and i'll continue to write and i'll stay in someone's spare room and i'll slowly scrape together some money and maybe someday i can buy a house and maybe maybe maybe but i would be happy just being able to turn the have my own tv to be able to get a have a vehicle and go to work and come back and be able to eat pick what i want to eat tonight i get to pick pizza tonight you know yeah you're describing you're describing a place of like um gut-wrenching humility right absolutely no one owes you anything

you're not entitled to anything and you're going to get out and you're going to do what you can to take back control of what's left of your life absolutely i mean that actually is inspiring and if you think that like you can joke and say oh well matt cox is my favorite subject ha ha ha ha ha your story is interesting like it actually is yeah i hope that a lot of people can can latch on to it without having to do the crime or the time and just say, look, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to humble myself and I'm going to try to make what I can out of my situation, which is really what life asks of everyone all the time. Yeah. It's funny, I had a friend. I used to, I used to buy a granola bars and I used to keep them in my car, because when you pull up to, you know, you pull up to a,

where are you? I'm in Little Rock, Arkansas. So. Oh, okay. You could probably do that. You know, sometimes you pull up to a light and every once in a while, there'll be like a homeless guy there. Yeah. Like in California, you know, you'd get, if you rolled your window down, they just take your vehicle. They just swarm in there. But, but here in Florida, like every once in while, there's a homeless guy. There's not a lot of homeless. But so I would have granola bars and I would pull up and, you know, if the light, if the guy's walking around, I roll the window down, I'd give them like a granola bar or a thing of water or something. And I'd roll it up. And I'd roll it up. And I'd roll it up. And I'd roll it up. And I'd roll it up. And I'd. And I'd roll it up. And I'd. And I'd roll it up. And I I had a friend of mine one time who said, why do you, what's with the granola bars? And I used to say, you know, I give them the homeless guys. And they would go, bro, like, wow, that's why. And I'd said, because listen, said, I'm too bad financial decisions away from being that guy. And I said, and that that's just the truth. Like, you know, especially when I was in the halfway house, if things hadn't gone right, I would have been that guy. man yeah well that's the way we need to be right um yeah listen i was very happy i'm so happy

right now i'm happy happier now than i've ever been in my life old man starting you can go find people whose lives are way better than yours they've had less bad stuff happened to them they've got more good stuff happening to them and you can feel as bad about yourself as you want to You actually can. Yeah. But man, our lives are the stories that we tell ourselves about our lives. And if you tell yourself, I'm this guy who's going to help someone who's hurting, and I'm going to do the best I can with what I have to make something of myself and try to help others,

that actually is who you're going to become, and you're going to end up writing the story that you want to be true about your life. Yeah. Yeah, I can see that. I can see that. Things are good. That's awesome. Things are good.

I mean, I'm not, you know, I'm not a fancy lawyer, you know, living in Arkansas or, you know, I'm not. But. And, and you're not out there scrapping, showing up on people's podcasts saying, hey, I've got an SBF video coming out on Friday, January. What is the date of that? 13th, you know, make sure you watch it at 3 p.m. Central time. You're not doing that. You're not that guy. I actually am that guy.

I still go on guys podcasts. Okay. I still do that. Are you promoting my SBF video at 3 o'clock on Friday? Absolutely. We're going to put the link in the description. Woo! Yeah, send them over to my channel. You've had some big videos. Yeah, things have been hopping for me in the last couple months. For somebody who just started a YouTube channel, like you've gotten some big view, especially for having so few subscribers at the time. Like, you're over, 10,000. What are you now?

we're at 14,000 now and we were at 2000 back in September but what has happened to me since I started my channel is guys have come by roll down the window and handed me granola bars that's all it takes yeah they actually have and I'm eating those granola bars and I'm thankful for them

and I'm just doing the best I can with it well I mean I think your channel will be I've had other people that have YouTube channels you know, that actually have had some big YouTube channels too. But yours is already starting off. It's funny too because there's a guy named Chad Marks who does like a prison channel. They call them prison channels. Like I call them mine this is like a true crime channel, but they're prison child.

And they really just talk about prison. He started off a year ago and he's probably got 80 or 90,000 subscribers. right now that is fantastic who needs to subscribe to him is all the parents out there whose kids are on the wrong path and they go make them watch the videos got to write an outline or an essay what did i learn in today's video it's the whole scared straight series i love it horrible i can't watch those videos well you don't need to you learned all you want to learn right no yeah i'm good i'm i'm i'm good so what do you think how much time do you think he gets I think that there are political ramifications for his sentencing because of his campaign finance crimes that, I'm sorry, whoa, whoa, alleged, whoa, whoa, whoa, almost defamed him, alleged campaign finance crimes.

Oh, and also, if you're watching this video, everything I said was alleged. Nothing's been proven. He's innocent until proven guilty, but alleged, alleged, alleged. that present some very real problems for him. The campaign finance stuff does. It's a layer that could complicate his situation. I'm going to go crazy and I'm going to say 35 and you'll probably take the under if I do that. 35.

Yeah. 35. I think between 15 and 20. I mean, I could be wrong, but 15 and 20. Oh, so you, I just took your two estimates and added them together and said that'll be my estimate. Wow. So you think the campaign contributions, you think that that's a real issue. So here's what I think.

I think that there's not the political will to regulate crypto right now, that the Justice Department is going to use this as an opportunity. to say, hey, we might not be able to get laws passed that provide the regulation for crypto that we would like. You know, we like big government. We like lots of law enforcement. We want us all up in your business all the time. We can't get that done right now. We are going to make a flaming hot example of this dude because we don't have that regulation

out there. We just want to scare the daylights out of anyone who might go down the path. that that s bf went down and and make an example of him that that would be my concern if if i were him okay that's that's my hot take man you know one more thing is i have a lot of people that say you know that all the political and this this kills me too because um because i know people that have donated i mean i've donated to political campaigns I've had, shoot, to be honest with you, I bribed a politician, helped get him elected, bribed him. He was going to rezone like 100 properties of mine.

So, I mean, I, you know, not to the degree that Sam Bankman-Fried did, but still. And so I've also talked to a guy who, his name is Brett. Oh, gosh, Brett. I forget his last name. Oh, Cassidy, Brett Cassidy, he donate, his company donated tons of money to various senators. And I talked to him about the SBF thing because I had all these people in the comment section saying, oh, he's donated so much money. He'll never do time.

But, you know, Brett had the same opinion I had, which is all of those politicians that took that money are running from this guy at this point. They're not looking to help him. They're not trying to help him. Yeah. So you're, you want to be the, I'm trying to, I'm looking here to see who he mostly contributed to. You probably already know. Um, I mean, I know the bulk of it was to the Democratic Party, although he also. Okay. So the Democrats are in charge of the Department of Justice right now. And if there's a message from the top, it's, um, create some space between us and him by burning him. Right. And, and they want. we want everyone to see the smoke go up so that no one thinks that you know we were trying to do him any favors right that's that'd be my concern yeah nobody's gonna stick their neck out for him like there are people they're like oh they're gonna make sure he doesn't do any time like that's not possible that ship is sale that's never going to happen he's definitely going to get it's just a matter

of how much time and what he has to offer if anything at this boy i i know i You're saying, I'm saying maybe he, maybe they say, look, we'd like you to help us with some of the internal things that happen. So we don't have to go through all the paperwork and figure it out. And maybe he knows more than his two, his two co-defendants that he can contribute. That's why I'm saying 15 to 20. You're saying they're not even given the opportunity. He's getting 35 years. That's my guess. Like I said, I'm a spectator in criminal litigation. I don't know. We'll see. I'm a player.

A baller, a gamer. Unfortunately. No, you hung up your cleats. You hung up your cleats. I'm a foot soldier, unfortunately. I'm actually in the game. That's, yeah. Well, so, hey, if you like the video, do me a favor and hit the subscribe button.

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