Spending a decade in jail at age 60+ is a hell of a price to pay for a few millions. I'm tempted to believe he doesn't actually know where the coins are. If that's the case, he just spent 10+ years in a cage because a judge didn't believe him....
Spending a decade in jail at age 60+ is a hell of a price to pay for a few millions. I'm tempted to believe he doesn't actually know where the coins are. If that's the case, he just spent 10+ years in a cage because a judge didn't believe him....
According to the article, the lawsuit said the coins were worth up to $400m. That's more than a "few" millions, it's $40m per year spent in jail. I think the bigger issue for him is that it will be very hard to launder all of that without getting caught.
At no point in my life would I choose to spend 10 years in jail for $400m. Only if my current living situation was very poor and this was my only way out of it. I can sort of imagine why one would... but it seems like an awful decision to me.
It seems more plausible to me he actually doesn't have the gold.
I would in a heartbeat. $400,000,000 is never-work-again-in-your-life money. Not just for me, but for my parents and other members of my family. You could put it into bonds at a mere 2% APY (far lower than current interest rates) and get 8 million dollars per year in interest for doing nothing.
At 16 waking hours per day, we're losing at least half of that with work, so it would only take 1 additional decade before I break even in terms of time, not even considering the vastly improved quality of life having millions of dollars of annual passive income nets you. I could even afford dram.
I might've done it in my 20s. But now that I'm much later in life the time is far more precious than the money.
And I don't think it's a good idea to hand family members never-work money. Their own achievements become meaningless.
Idk I would rather spend 10 years in jail later in life than in my twenties.
Otherwise I agree with you it’s not a trade off that is worth it at any point in life
I was about to comment that there was no amount of money I would take in return for spending time in prison but then I realized that of course that’s not true. It would be fun to create a survey that would show a visualization of where people tend to fall on the time/money axis for this.
It logically should track closely to the person's age and life expectancy and "legit job" earning potential. I would spend my years 20-29 in jail for $400M, wealth that I'd enjoy for the rest of my life, without hesitation. Heck, I'd have been willing to spend my twenties in prison for $40M. That's still life-changing never-have-to-work-again money. 30-39? I'd probably do it for $400M. 40-49? Hmm, now that's getting kind of tough. Maybe I'd do it for $1B. 50-59? I don't think I could physically do it, and given the number of years I had left, I probably wouldn't even be able to enjoy whatever sum we are talking about.
> I would spend my years 20-29 in jail for $400M
This is kind of why I want to make this survey now because there’s no way I’d spend a decade of my life in prison for any amount of money. I would do six months for $3M. I’d maybe do 12 for $10M. But beyond that…I don’t know, even a year seems like too long to be behind bars.
Would a guarantee of a different kind of prison environment change your mind? For example, prison conditions in the Netherlands versus the US? If you were allowed 6+ hours of positive, structured activities a day? Less than if you weren't in prison of course, but as we're talking about 'How much is it worth to you...'
I could have had a whole lot of fun in my thirties and forties with that kind of money. At this point it would just mean iron clad financial security and not much more. Even if I could afford Gabe Newell size yacht I wouldn't buy one.
And meanwhile you can spend that time in jail working on fitness, instead of being addicted to social media and scrolling tik-tok.
You can already do that now? It’s actually much harder to “better” yourself when in jail than outside. The conditions range from pretty bad to horrible. Of course if you go to jail in like Sweden it might not be so bad. But everywhere else hell naw
People in this thread seem to think that jail is something like vacation.
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"Their own achievements become meaningless."
You're saying that making money is the sole criteria for "meaningful achievement"?
No, but imagine if every time you did something there was a thought in the back of your mind that said "I could have paid someone else to do this without materially affecting my wealth."
Of course not. But I used to know a group of guys who were born fabulously wealthy. None of them were happy. For them to get a job it would be essentially working for free relative to the wealth they have.
I'm sure there are people out there who would find meaning in creating art of some type, or turning their fortune into an even bigger fortune, but I suspect those people are rare.
> None of them were happy
That's because they're human, not because they're filthy rich and have all the privileges in the world.
If it were that simple they could give all their money away and get a job at Walmart to find perfect happiness.
I’d argue it’s more an attribute of being a driven, difficult to satisfy, competitive, human.
Which correlates strongly with ‘success’ in any system where there is a clear metric for success, which is certainly true for our current economic system eh? If there was a system they wanted to compete in where the metric was ‘happiness’ measured by some concrete metric, I bet those same people would be as aggressively ‘happy’ with however it was measured too - and just as actually miserable.
That those people are rarely (if ever) happy is a side effect of those attributes, and a core part of what makes them the way they are.
After all, if they were able to be happy with anything less…. They’d have stopped already? And hence have less/a lower ‘score’ on that particular metric? And probably actually be happier.
Notably, I know plenty of people who are very happy with nothing - dirt poor - and plenty of people who are also miserable with nothing too.
The difference is, it’s a lot less competitive being dirt poor eh?
The people I know who do not have to work to ensure healthcare for their kids seem happier than the ones who do have to work. Being able to go on vacations for extended durations or at convenient times is also heavily utilized.
I think you are discounting the mental, physical and social toll of being locked up for 10 years. Without autonomy, without privacy, without access to your loved ones (some of whom might die, and the rest will likely have irreparably damaged relationship after), treated as a bad person, surrounded by criminals. It's not "you get 400M for aging 10 years", or for dying ten years younger; I might take those deals. It's spending those 10 years in a prison, and dealing with the consequences of that after.
Yeah but it was voluntary. He was locked up on contempt for refusing to give the location of the remaining gold coins for 2 years and only stayed in jail for 10 years because he kept refusing. They let him out after 10 years because he was "unlikely to ever offer an answer". It sounds like his mental process was slightly different than what most people in this thread are arguing.
It's a chance for $400m. Doesn't mean he can get the $400m, since legally it still isnt his and it still can get seized after he gets out if he ever tries to cash it in,
> I would in a heartbeat. $400,000,000 is never-work-again-in-your-life money
I general, as in some rich weirdo like Mr. Beast made that deal and you can have your $400m fair and square at the end? Ok that’s a different scenario to one more plausible here where after 10 years you and your family may never be able a to spend it without being sued or jailed again because it’s disputed.
I think first of all it depends on the jail. It's not like you're just sitting in a room, not living. You're experiencing stuff, and it's prison stuff, and that can be hard to shrug off. How valuable is $8 million if you're too broken to enjoy it?
Second, it depends on if you can keep anybody else who is in jail from knowing that you're sitting on $400 million. Otherwise that info will be beaten out of you long before your sentence ends. Maybe that's OK if it's at the bottom of the sea.
You still get to keep millions, just not the whole $400m if you don't go to jail.
In theory I am with you on the subject. Assuming that jail does not endanger one's life and mental integrity, one still has good chunk of life ahead and the whole thing is a clean trade-off, no further strings attached. But that is not what happens in real life and suddenly your choice might become very iffy.
I think there'd be a big psychological difference between spend the next 10 years in jail, collect 400 million and you're in jail indefinitely, if you get out you may collect 400 million.
I was referring to specific 10 years note. Not playing roulette which from my point if you makes it a no go at all
Come revisit when you are over 60 my friend. I have no doubt there is an endless army of folks who would do much worse for much less, regardless of age, but in normal situation thats not a... smart behavior for the lack of better polite words.
The idea that money will cure all life's ailments and screwups and bring happiness is an idea of a clueless poor man. At that age, priorities are normally elsewhere since everybody feel like they don't know the day and hour when something bad happens.
I like that you're all assuming you'd walk out of their alive.
I have more family members who’ve been to prison than college. The mainstream narrative around how dangerous prison is is extremely overblown and limited to a few prisons and generally to those who engage in organized crime
Most people come out of prison in WAY better shape than they went in
Define "way better shape". Mentally? Physically? Spiritually?
It's not prison, but I know people who spent time in various county jails for weeks to months, and all of them definitely came out worse, and did their best to stay as far away as possible from going back (at least as far as I could tell).
Me too. I hate my corporate job. Once I leave jail I'd still have a good chunk of life in front of me.
I'm sure there's an elegant gentleman willing to offer you much more than 400 million in exchange of a bare eternity of imprisonment.
Could it be the sunk cost fallacy? He started out thinking he’d spend a few weeks, then a few months… and before long, he has been in there for years and so he must continue with the lie lest he have wasted years of his life.
I’m amused but I guess not shocked or surprised that some people below this comment have different limits on what they’ll do for money than I do. I 100% would not spend any significant time restricting my freedom in jail for ANY amount of money. You can extend my principle to doing other things for money, also. I think my principle might come down to: I won’t trade myself (me, I don’t mean my time or my knowledge) for money. I won’t relinquish my autonomy or control for your money. Yet some will.
He could have just give the investors say 80% of what he found and hid the rest without them even knowing the true amount
you can save hundreds, maybe thousands, from poverty and hunger with that kind of money
10 years is nothing compared to 400m
An internet theorist.
Ever spent even a week in county lockup?
Definitely not. But 40m a year is a pretty hefty paycheck.
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I would maybe spend one year in prison for 40M$. If I actually had a button in front of me that would — if I pressed it — land me in prison for a year and got me 40M$ when I get out, I still wouldn't do it. But I can see the point there. No way would I spend a second year in prison for another 40M$ after that, not even a year for the remaining 360M$. The subjective value of money does not scale linearly. But then again, people are greedy and like big numbers and other unimportant things and they do give away their valuable time of life for these unimportant things instead of using it for actually valuable things.
>40M$ button
You just reminded me of this old internet horror story https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h-cAbOyRXc
Why didn't they just convict him of fraud and fine him the estimated value of the missing coins, rather than trying to convince him to divulge where they were? Now, the guy is out of jail and they still haven't recovered the value of the gold from him. Lose-lose for the plaintiffs and for justice. Why are we so soft on fraud?
I’m not sure that is being soft on fraud, but being realistic and thinking the other dude would crack first.
For one, to convict him, they’d need to prove the coins existed (actually) and they were plausibly worth that much. Not a straightforward thing if you have no idea where they are, eh?
You're really gonna take what the other party to a lawsuit says at face value? They probably took the most expensive "collector coin" and then assumed all the other coins were worth that rather than melt value.
"With a street value of over $10 million dollars, the baggie found on the suspect is expected to vault the police chief to running-mate status for the governor..."
Well, if there is anywhere to learn how (and make friends with whom!) he could possibly launder $400m worth of gold coins….
10 years for refusing to to say where he found gold is wild. people who committed fraud against elderly people and child molesters often get sentenced for less than that.
> 10 years for refusing to to say where he found gold is wild.
No, that's not what happened. I'm guessing you saw this news before under a clickbait title.
It's not about where gold was found, it's about where he stashed it later. These are assets that are (or were) in his hands which partially belong to all the investors he defrauded.
Still point stand that fraud is at times punished harsher then rape or child molesting
The fraud isn’t what he’s being punished for.
The ongoing refusal to answer questions under oath is.
He could have agreed to talk anytime and been released shortly.
I understand being in contempt for not answering a question generally, but I'm curious how this doesn't fall under 5th amendment protections.
IANAL
It's a civil proceeding not a criminal proceeding so he would not be incriminating himself.
He could argue that by answering he would be admitting crimes and opening himself to criminal liability. But there's a possibly they give him immunity and that route is taken away.
IANAL either but I'm not sure anyone involved in the civil case would have the power or authority to grant criminal immunity (perhaps up to and including the judge, at least local to me the civil judges do not do criminal cases - there is no overlap).
It sure would be nice if this standard of conduct in court were also upheld for the US federal officials who refuse to answer or straight up bold faced lie in court. But nah, it only ever happens to normal people.
Rape and child molesting is often, unfortunately, hard to prove in a court of law. This case is the opposite.
You are missing the point. When these crimes are proved in court they get lower sentences. The lower conviction rates are unavoidable. The shorter sentences are not.
I remember once reading two bits of news about people given similar sentences. One for copyright infringement, the other for sexual assault of a teenager.
Money is more valuable than people
Well, practically when I tried to buy that yacht with my 10 year old, the threatened me with more jail time… (/s)
There's a certain client list you might be interested in
I don’t understand why he won’t just share it, that’s Thorin Oakenshield level of crazy to choose jail over that.
“On my life, I will not part with a single coin.”
Glad to see a Hobbit reference here. That's the first thing I thought of when I read the article. Totally bizarre.
He defrauded his investors. As much as I find that funny, what he did was a white collar crime that has consequences.
Right.
It’s a mystery to me how on one day on HN you will see “corporate death penalty” discussed and on the next “$400MM white collar crimes should not be punished as much as murdering a single person”.
If this were Apple, Google, or Meta having committed the crime, I think the tenor of the discussion would be very different.
It's almost as if comments on a website called "hacker news" are written by individuals with differing and varying opinions, and not by some nebulous hive-mind that purports to be internally consistent.
Sarcasm was unnecessary to make this excellent point.
Yeah it's a sad consequence but... He effectively stole from others, why are people shocked? And yes contempt charges shouldn't go this long, but that's a separate qualm than "should he be criminally charged at all".
In Germany, financial crimes are often punished much harder than capital crimes too. Tells you where the priorities lie.
Well, you could look at it from the perspective of incentives. The number of people who would commit a financial crime for $LARGE_SUM in exchange for a short stint in prison is much higher than the number of people who would commit rape or murder for the same stint. Most people don’t even want to commit murder or rape. But most people do want money and if you presented them the opportunity to get it in a non violent manner that they could rationalize in any way…well, now you need some heavy disincentives.
That's true in the US as well. It's because that kind of crime undermines faith in the financial system, something it must have to function. People grumble about white collar criminals getting light sentences, but the easiest way to get sent to jail for fifty years is to swindle a bunch of pensioners out of their life's savings.
There's a huge difference though, at least in the US: If a company (or very wealthy individual) commits a financial crime, then after they are caught (maybe) and investigated (maybe) and they mount an unsuccessful defense (maybe) and they are fined (maybe) and they lose their five appeals (maybe), after all that happens, they might pay a small token fine that doesn't even approach the damage they did, and have to pinky-swear to a judge that they'll never do it again. Nobody's going to prison. If a normie individual commits a similar financial crime, they're going to be financially ruined and go to prison.
I don't think this is true, though, is it?. Jeffrey Skilling got a 24 year sentence for his involvement in the Enron collapse. Ken Lay would have gotten even more but for the fact that he died before he could be sentenced.
Bernie Madoff got 150 years in prison for his Ponzi scheme.
All three of those guys are the very definition of wealthy and powerful, and there are endless other, albeit smaller, examples.
That is if you do it the stupid way. If you do it the plausibly deniable way, or with sufficient political backing, such as the current US president or one of the US senators from Florida, then nothing happens, except maybe gaining more power.
Always have your conversations in person and have underlings sign documents relating to transactions.
Also, you can systemically steal from future generations with no consequence, as a voter and leader. Promise people today big pensions and retiree healthcare, underfund today by telling actuaries to use unrealistic assumptions, or just straight up ignore funding recommendations, and then let the debt pile up for others to deal with.
>"It's because that kind of crime undermines faith in the financial system"
LOL. The whole system is based on constantly stealing fruits of one's labor by way of inflation and 2 classes of haves and have-nots in regards to real assets. How can regular Joe have faith in it is beyond my comprehension.
To be fair, that’s pretty common and the justification is that it’s much more difficult to get caught (and the criminals are usually much smarter and better at not getting caught too).
Where is that justification given?
It's criminology 101. Expected punishment = probability of being caught * severity of punishment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterrence_theory
Well it's not shocking given your countries history. Both target crimes usually committed by their minority groups.
they mostly get elected to positions of great power i guess
Most don't even get sentenced at all, what's your point?
Seems more like sunk cost fallacy, after 12 months in jail you could be unwilling to give up and tell where the treasure is, because then you would have spent a year in jail for nothing, and then it just gets worse and worse each passing year...
At what age do you believe, 10 years in jail are a better price to pay?
Several people in the comments are focusing too much on the 10 years and on if that’s an acceptable trade-off.
It’s worth pointing out no one knew it would be 10 years, not even the judge. The sentence wasn’t “10 years”, it was “indefinitely until we get an answer”. It just so happens that 10 years is when this judge decided “alright, we’re not going to get an answer, no point in the jail time”.
Younger. The opportunity cost of time scales non-linearly with age. If you're old enough, 10 years can be a life sentence.
If I were asked to give up 10 years of my life I would rather choose to give up the final 10 years than 10 years in the prime of my life.
I think anyone would. But that’s not the scenario here. The question is: would you spend your last decade in a cell just to have the "satisfaction" of knowing where some gold is buried?
Maybe if it’s all been buried in one place, in One Piece.
If you ask people that would still have 25+ years of life after they're freed, I bet a lot of them would willingly take that trade.
I don't think there exists an amount of money I'd take in exchange for 10 years in jail, at any point in my life. 10 years is a long time.
And sure, it depends on the jail... Can I like go for at least a short bike ride or go running? Can I have my computer and internet and Hacker News? Can I drink my oolongs and pu-erhs? Is the food delicious? But then it's not much of a jail anymore...
> But then it's not much of a jail anymore...
If you aren't free to leave, and you're kept apart from society it's a jail. No one is ever sentenced to "10 years of eating bad food". Our prison system may torture people, it may feed them maggot infested food, it may deny them healthcare or safety, but that's not justice and it's not the punishment they were given, it's just an abuse they're made to suffer because the cruel and the greedy have been able to get away with it.
If we've determined that somebody is too dangerous to live with the rest of our society there's no reason at all that they should have to be miserable or suffer needlessly. It's enough that they are kept away from us so that we're safe from them. Their actions would have required us to take their freedom, but they should be able to make the best of their situation and not be subjected to inhumane treatment or abuse.
If we feel we need to jail people temporarily as a punitive measure it's enough to keep them locked up, separated from their loved ones, and unable to do what they want or go where they want. The only people who'd think losing your freedom isn't a punishment are those who don't value freedom. Most people really do know it's a punishment, but they just want to see people suffer far beyond what their sentence calls for or the law should ever allow.
> If you aren't free to leave, and you're kept apart from society it's a jail.
Kept apart from society? And no one will be bothering me? Sounds like heaven.
The nice thing about not being in jail is that you have the freedom to choose where and how you live. Feel free to move into a shack in the middle of the woods away from everyone. Plenty of people make the choice to live as hermits or shutins because they don't want to deal with other people or the demands being a part of a community places on them.
Well, it’s more that there will be a specific society that you’ll be forced to be a part of. You can try to keep to yourself but you’ll still be living, eating, showering, and so on in rather cramped conditions with many others.
Yes, I know. Does it ever stop? The OP suggested there was a way to be apart from from society. /s
Well, if society feels the need of inflicting this on you, it's a win-win, so why not?
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You can get decent food, good education, internet access, bike rides and running in Norwegian prisons - you're still there for {X} years (depending on behaviour).
Well, stationary bike riding at least - not all of them have large yards that take a good while to cycle about.
* https://www.sixnorwegianprisons.com/spaces/rehabilitation.ht...
* https://www.sixnorwegianprisons.com/spaces/yard.html> But then it's not much of a (US) jail anymore...
exactly - these are Norwegian gaols. They started out much like US gaols but once it came clear how poorly they performed (wrt good of community rather than pockets of BigBarsCo.) they were overhauled:
* https://www.firststepalliance.org/post/norway-prison-system-...
I think many people who have children would gladly do 10 year in prison at age 60 if it meant they could leave $400m in their estate. If we pretend for the sake of the argument (unrealistically) that there's no major ethical concern, and that the money can actually be kept afterwards, then I would definitely make that sacrifice for my children. They are more important to me than my own personal comfort.
> They are more important to me than my own personal comfort.
Which means you can have a bigger positive impact on their lives by being present than by giving them money.
Maybe, maybe not. At age 60 my kids will be grown up and living their own independent lives. They might even live a long distance from me. There are a lot of variables which might mean I don't see them very frequently anyway. Of course there will still be something lost if they can only visit me in jail for 10 years. But at age 60, I'll statistically only be around for another 20 years anyway and if I'm unlucky, maybe far less than that.
On the other hand, $400m can ensure that for the rest of their lives they and their children and their grandchildren don't have to worry about being able to afford a home, good schools, good healthcare, etc. With future issues such as the rise of AI, global warming, and the erosion of international law, there are many dangers ahead including potential mass disruption to job markets and ability to earn a living. I'd rest easier knowing that I've given my descendants a solid chance of surviving all that, even if it means affecting my relationship with them for 10 years. It's a balance between pros and cons.
I would not assume that giving my kids $400 million would be a net benefit to them.
Now to be fair I might be wrong, since I’ve neither researched this nor given it much thought. Maybe there is research on deca- and centimillionaire heirs that shows positive effects of money on life satisfaction, happiness, health and other life outcomes. However I suspect it works similarly to sheltering kids from adversity, failure and hardship in general: disadvantages them psychologically and leads to more problems down the line.
1 trillion dollars.
Can I use the 1 trillion dollars to make my jail stay more comfortable? If not, then I'm not interested. What would I do with 1 trillion dollars to offset the missing 10 years?
Perhaps if there was a good chance I could prolong my "still healthy" years by 20 years or more, I should take it. But it seems like disappearing for 10 years would break a lot of things. People will die, friends will move on... sounds like a rather bad deal still.
> What would I do with 1 trillion dollars to offset the missing 10 years?
Buy every politician and the media to become the effective ruler of your country, then use your influence to improve the lives of your compatriots, overhaul the entire political system and media to add safeguards to prevent anyone from ever again doing what you did, create a just society and become a beacon of hope to the world.
Thank you, you have a very high opinion of me. I think it'd go rather worse than that.
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1 quadrillion dollars.
I'm not sure if I would take it either. I would feel better earning (a fraction of) the money instead of just sitting around for it.
I would not want a quadrillion dollars in the first place, I would first try to reduce it to an amount that I can maintain relatively hassle-free and under-the-radar. But even for that perfect amount, I can't think of an age where I'd want to spent 10 years in prison, no matter how comfortable it is.
You could buy a pardon from Trump and still have almost a trillion leftover.
Nobody knows how long you will have to live, especially not if you spend 10 years in an average prison. But there is a limited time of being young.
It depends on what life you've lived so far.
This presumes he knew he would be held that long.
Presuming he holds keys to vast wealth, the calculation would have shifted over time. Especially once he was serving his original sentence again starting a year ago.
Another consideration is that many go to jail longer with no upside once getting released.
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