BOTTOM STORY OF THE DAY: Sam Bankman-Fried might be eating a lot of rice, almonds and Skittles drink mix if he wants to stay vegan in prison.
Sam Bankman-Fried might have trouble maintaining his vegan diet in prison.
The disgraced crypto entrepreneur could carry out his 25-year sentence at Mendota, a medium-security prison in California, according to a prison consultant hired by his lawyers.
There, he might have to opt for vegan items on the prison’s commissary list such as rice, almonds and Skittles drink mix, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Bankman-Fried was found guilty on seven counts, including fraud and conspiracy, by a jury in November.
US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who imposed Bankman-Fried’s 25-year sentence on Thursday, recommended he serve it in a low or medium-security prison near his parents’ home in San Francisco.
The judge said he’d factored Bankman-Fried’s wealth and autism, which could make him a target, into his recommendation, the Journal reported.
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Either way, food is likely to be an issue. Bill Baroni, a former New Jersey official convicted for his role in the Bridgegate scandal, told the Journal the only vegetables he ate in prison came from cans. “He’s not going to a Just Salad,” Baroni said. “He’ll probably have to do a lot of peanut butter.”
But like Epstein’s mother corresponding with esteemed New York teacher Gabriel Kotter, SBF’s mother wrote the judge a letter, you know: SBF Is an Empathetic Vegan Altruist MIT Grad!
SBF’s mom submitted a 6-page letter, so I won’t go through it all. But I will give you a flavor of it and give you my argument for why I think it represents something much more than a mother’s plea for mercy.
From the first paragraph, Barbara Fried tells us what matters to her: credentials.
Dear Judge Kaplan: I am Sam Bankman-Fried’s mother. | am also a law professor at Stanford, where | have taught for the past thirty-five years, and before that was an attorney at Paul Weiss in New York and a law clerk on the Second Circuit.
She is speaking as a highly credentialed person to another highly credentialed person. I am a law professor. You are a judge. We are of the same class, you know. We are not plebs to be held to the same standards as others.
Cringe.
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The next part of the letter is particularly precious: Sam is a VEGAN, don’tcha know?
While he was still in high school, Sam started to think hard about the implications of utilitarianism for how he should live his life. His conversion to veganism was one outgrowth of that quest. Sam lived on steak and fries until he was eighteen years old. After looking into the treatment of factory farm animals in his freshman year at college, he became a vegetarian. After looking more deeply into it, he became a vegan. His determination to remain vegan in prison, where the absence of vegan food has forced him to live on commissary junk food, reveals a lot about his strength of character and moral commitment, He has lost 30 pounds since he was remanded to prison in August. He has never once complained to us or, as we know, the prison authorities. He has just made do because it was important enough to him to do so.
Seriously?
Yes, she is serious. Sam is so moral that he turned into a vegan!
All this is on the first page of a 6-page letter. She is seriously leading with this. And she is leading with this because this is how elites think. The fact that he defrauded and immiserated thousands of people is nothing compared to the fact that he is so principled that he is a vegan.
Decline is a choice, America:
