Former federal inmate here who was recently released from prison a month ago today (I did 18 months): The big deal here was the loss amount, which can be construed any number of ways whether we like it or not. This will jack up the points and tilt the scale for the sentencing guidelines, and believe me they are archaic.
After all is said and done, Charlie Javice will be hanging out at a prison camp—probably down there with Holmes and Maxwell, because it's cushy—and do no more than 4 years on the 7 assuming she completes all her programming requirements.
> After all is said and done, Charlie Javice will be hanging out at a prison camp—probably down there with Holmes and Maxwell, because it's cushy—and do no more than 4 years
I don't mind that outcome. She did not knowingly sell a product that could harm the public or abuse and traffic children, so it wouldn't be unfair or a travesty of justice like with those other two (especially that last one)
I'm not sure I like the incentives that creates, though. If this is the precedent, then if you're committing financial fraud already you might as well go as big as possible, since there appears to be a cap on punishment.
I mean from mine, and im sure many other people's view, that is already mostly true. Her biggest mistake to me seems like messing with a big dog, rather than screwing over little guys that don't have millions to throw at the courts or teams of full time lawyers. If JPMorgan defrauded the same amount of money from a bunch of regular joes I doubt anybody would be in jail or even that any potential fees would come anywhere to matching the amount of money defrauded.
ah yes, so clearly we must make sure that they are even less enforced. what could go wrong? hell, Enron lost investors-- bunch of billionaire fat cats, the lot of 'em-- $75 billion... they shoulda made Kenneth Lay Chairman of the Fed! or i guess maybe he his net worth had one too many zeroes to be sympathetic... hell, Kawhi Leonhard and his uncle blatantly and deliberately broke all of the NBA salary cap rules in the way that an undercover cop asks everyone they come across if they can buy weed from them, but the Clippers are owned by Steve Ballmer, so it's apparently okay. we hate the player because of the game in everything except for sports lmao.
I'm unconvinced. Banks wield massive political power through their capital, and so get away with highway robbery all the time. 2008 financial crisis comes to mind. It seems to me that the rules are one sided and so it seems this "foundational part" of high functioning society is just guarding the highwaymen with the cityguard, when the swords should be facing the other direction.
The banks at the center of the 2008 crisis are largely international. Is your question about the entire western international finance system and all societies comprising it?
Anti fraud rules sending people to jail are what we're discussing, and the proposition that they're necessary for a high functioning society. If we have these rules, and society is not high functioning, then, it seems you and I agree, that they're not necessary for a high functioning society.
> Strong anti fraud rules (even for massive banks) are a foundational part of a high functioning society.
Sometimes it seems we're missing most of the "foundational part[s] of a high functioning society" except the ones that serve elites (which then are so sacred *and must never be questioned).
Eventually people stop caring about the elite's protections, even if that breakdown is ultimately harmful. It's like the murder of that United Healthcare CEO. His company ground down the common man's benefits in a way that probably killed thousands (at least), but we're supposed to cry for him. Betray people long enough, and they're no longer interested in holding up their side of the bargain.
If they want a high functioning society, the elites need to work harder at holding up their end of the bargain.
> Minimum security institutions, also known as Federal Prison Camps (FPCs), have dormitory housing, a relatively low staff-to-inmate ratio, and limited or no perimeter fencing. These institutions are work- and program-oriented.
The Elizabeth Holmes Wiki page says she is staying here: Federal Prison Camp, Bryan (Texas).
> FPC Bryan along with FPC Lewisburg and FPC Lompoc have the lowest security rating of all the federal institutions, other than community corrections centers as those are known as halfway houses. Due to the low classification, most of these facilities have no fence and a low staff-to-inmate ratio.
No fence!
Oh, it looks like Ghislaine Maxwell (of Jeffrey Epstein fame/infamy) is also staying there.
Lawyers don't have much to do with this part of the process. Adults-in-custody have a points system that reflects where they fall on the ladder as far as custody level goes. More in Program Statement 5100: https://www.bop.gov/policy/progstat/5100_008cn.pdf
Lawyers have a huge impact on how the case (and defendant!)
is presented, what is and is not considered in the trial or plea, what plea the person gets - or if they get one at all, etc.
McMillan was involved in a group of three purchasing around a pound of meth. Yurchik was involved in a ring of 27 people in multiple states moving kilogram quantities over the course of two years: https://www.kxxv.com/news/local-news/central-texans-among-21...
The group also actively laundered its earnings though only half a dozen or so were charged for that. The feds seized seventy-two kg of meth from them, more than one hundred fifty times what this other lady was involved with, a kg of cocaine, a bunch of money, and more than a dozen firearms. These were not cases of radically unequal charging.
I don't know why you picked these two people but I get a little tired of folks presenting such a skewed view of any and everything to come up with "prison bad, judge bad, sentence bad".
> Yurchick was one of 21 people that had been indicted for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute kilogram quantities of methamphetamine in Texas and elsewhere from August 2019 to March 2021 … Yurchick subsequently pleaded guilty to that charge on February 1, 2022
I would pay to boss around country club criminals in chicken suits like Ghislaine Maxwell and Donald Trump over the internet, in the name of rehabilitation.
Well, have you seen "maximum" security prisons in Norway and Finland? It is really something else. You can find videos on YouTube about it. It looks like a summer camp. Of course, they have high social goals to reintegrate these people into regular society when their sentence is complete.
the reduction of time works out well for shorter sentences, but for longer sentences, you will have to serve at least close to the 85% . If you know you will be guilty, you can void bail and work on your sentence early so you get some time served.
I’m curious your relation to the BOP—there are all but a few of us here. My email is in my profile if you’d care to share.
The FSA and SCA do wonders for shorter sentences indeed. The recent push (at least on paper) for more timely transitions to community custody is welcomed and very overdue.
Sentence length is hard to stomach when you experience first hand how it all but strips people of their future. People get 10 years in the US that would be no more than 1 anywhere else, and then society expects them to come out rehabilitated and ready to contribute to society starting from, most commonly, zero.
Halfway houses don’t fix that. Home confinement doesn’t fix that. I’m lucky to have a highly marketable skill and a high degree of ability which makes my experience different than most.
I ask myself all the time how it gets fixed. In this society, I don’t think there’s a chance.
I got picked up by my partner, thankfully. I was a self-surrender too.
I did hear that they yanked out all the valuable assets from Cimarron (OKC's out-of-custody transfer facility) and now all the doors are manually keyed, amongst other things.
> It’s hard to take your views on sentencing seriously
I have no idea why he had to surrender a year and a half of his life to a notoriously dangerous "correctional" institution for redistributing television streams. For profit or not. I think his incarceration represents an abuse of the system to protect sports monopolies. I genuinely wonder if it wasn't cruel and unusual.
No offense but he clearly wasn't some elite hax0r with the capability of bringing significant portions of American infrastructure to it's knees for the purposes of harming the public at large.
Professional sports league games are the output of the efforts of thousands of people and billions of dollars of capital. The right to distribute video of those games are the largest part of how those leagues make money, as arranged by contracts and underpinned by intellectual property law.
This is not a case of "you're just bottling tap water". There is tremendous value created by these leagues as represented by their revenues. It is totally absurd to me that someone can believe stealing that intellectual property at scale is not a crime. It is no different than stealing a laptop. In fact, it's worse! The ease by which the scale of the theft can amplified is like stealing thousands of laptops. Do you believe stealing laptops and selling them is criminal?
It is not. If I can copy your laptop: You still have a laptop. I also have one now. So it's actually the opposite of worse. It's not nearly as bad.
> Do you believe stealing laptops and selling them is criminal?
Do you still have a laptop? Then why should I be punished in a jail cell? If you want to settle for cash, we can talk, but if you intend on threatening my life over copies then you have lost the plot.
We likely won't agree on this. I think you're wrong and theft should absolutely be criminal, and theft of certain magnitude should result in prison time.
But, he wasn't sent to prison just for the theft and distribution. He also "illegally intruded into MLB computer networks" and then "engaged in an attempt to extort approximately $150,000 from MLB ".
He plead guilty to all of this. You think all of that should just be settled via lawsuit, too?
Well.. as you yourself said: they're a billion dollar company. I expect them to secure their own infrastructure better. One guy with spare time working from home bested them? The FBI is not there to cover corporate negligence.
> He plead guilty to all of this.
Then he almost certainly would have settled very quickly in a civil case.
> You think all of that should just be settled via lawsuit, too?
Yes. It's the appropriate remedy. It's the fastest and most direct path to justice for the harmed entity.
If you're still so thirsty for blood then ask yourself if simple probation with agreed restrictions wouldn't have brought about the same outcome. Would the NFL and MLB have felt just as "protected" with this simple jurisprudence?
This was a criminal act. Not a civil dispute. Crime disturbs the moral order of a society. The punishment should fit the crime. Here, this man stole millions of economic value (with some extortion on the side). That certainly warrants jail time, in my mind (and the court’s, apparently).
A crime’s punishment should hold the criminal accountable, mete out retribution, deter other would be criminals, and incapacitate the criminal so they cannot continue to harm others.
> I expect them to secure their own infrastructure better
Sounds a lot like victim blaming. You must subscribe to the San Francisco justice model where people are told they shouldn’t have anything in their cars and they should be left unlocked, else they deserve it when a scumbag breaks their window to burgle their property. I don’t. Fortunately, most of the rest of the world doesn’t either.
No. I mean that there was a full submission on him on HN front page this morning, that later was flagged out of concern, because he has in fact a probation officer that should maybe not see this.
After all is said and done, Charlie Javice will be hanging out at a prison camp—probably down there with Holmes and Maxwell, because it's cushy—and do no more than 4 years on the 7 assuming she completes all her programming requirements.