Actually, finance is quite a similar shitshow, but people feel safe if they think it is regulated. SEC employs some intelligent people, but a smarter always goes where the real money is. The end result is that SEC will heavily police small funds and investors but will give a wrist slap on big players (which caused almost any mess in finance history) because SEC doesn't have the resources to fight them.
Resources exist to fight them. It’s just a choice not to.
Elizabeth Holmes was indicted 5 years ago. She was sentenced last year. She’s still walking around freely.
A normal person would’ve spent at least 4 of those years locked up, if not all of them. They most certainly wouldn’t be out and about after being convicted. These people simply have different rules applied to them.
She received an 11-year sentence last November but she's apparently a free woman until April 27th of this year.
Can someone who knows more about the American legal system explain this to me? Why is this possible? I assumed that when you're sentenced you get taken to jail pretty much immediately.
(Yes, I'm sure the short answer is just "because she has lots of money", but what are the details? What exactly did she spend it on to buy an extra 5 months of freedom?)
A long time (~20 years) ago I used to work at a large bank in The Netherlands. I was told there were some software engineers who stole a lot of money, but it was never reported, because the bank didn't want to get negative publicity. Instead, the bank made a deal with these ex-engineers and they'd keep their mouths shut.
