For the Christmas holiday, my wife and I, along with our son Daniel, traveled up to the Sierras to meet up with our other son, Patrick. It was nice to all be together for a few days, albeit not in the comfort of our own home.
When we made it back home, fortunately the power was still on but it wasn’t for long. At 8 a.m. Saturday, a mudslide took out a couple of power poles and undermined the road, making repairs to the power lines significantly more challenging. Thus, I am writing to you the old-fashioned way, using pen and paper. If you have ever read, “Reagan In His Own Hand,” published by the Free Press in 2001, you know it is how all the material in that book was first formulated: Ronald Reagan writing on a yellow notepad with a pen, wherever he happened to be. It was decades before the age of laptop computers and tablets.
Given the circumstances, it is fortunate I saved some of the newspapers I picked up at the Plantation before we headed east. Visiting with old San Carlos friends for coffee at the time, I did not have opportunity to delve into any articles but I did notice a few headlines which piqued my interest. Thus, I kept the papers for reading when we returned home. This afternoon was the opportunity and my commentary on one of the articles is the subject of this writing.
The article is about the case against Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange, FTX. What stands out most to me upon reading the article is how it appears Sam is being treated with the proverbial “kid gloves” pretrial.
Initially, it was reported SBF was free on bail but those reports proved to be untrue. He was released from custody after posting bond and what was offered as collateral was his parent’s home on the Stanford University campus (Both his parents are professors at the university).
The reason this is significant is because of the gross difference between posting bail and posting bond. When one posts bail, a bail bondsman puts up the bail amount but only after the defendant comes up with 10%, an amount that goes to the bondsman regardless whether the accused appears in court or doesn’t.
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Of course, if Sam were to skip out on the trial, his parents might end up homeless. However, to know that Sam was given house arrest without putting anything of his own in jeopardy seems to be giving him special treatment.
By contrast, I consider the case of a friend of mine who, in a traffic stop, was found to have a small caliber pistol in his pocket. He had forgotten he had put it there earlier in the day. He’d been cleaning it during his lunch break at his auto body shop when a lady friend entered his office. Being the gentleman he was, he tucked the pistol out of sight in his coveralls. When police made their stop and asked if he had any weapons on him, he suddenly remembered what he had in his pocket.
After his arrest, my friend was slapped with a bail amount he couldn’t possibly afford. It was after a number of us rallied on his behalf that I learned the process of bail. While we gave our best effort to help our friend, he remained behind bars for weeks in the county jail. Our greatest concern was, because of his age, he would not survive the stressful ordeal of confinement (He was a Korean War veteran). Fortunately, District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe understood our predicament and lowered bail to an amount we could afford to manage.
So why the difference in treatment? I believe it is obvious. It is because my friend was just a working-class guy who fixed cars for a living and had no special connections. By comparison, Sam Bankman-Fried and his parents do have connections, most assuredly with politicians who received money from FTX, and most likely as well, from other areas of upper-class society. After all, someone as young as Sam Bankman-Fried does not found a firm like FTX without certain connections, and more than likely those connections were not merely college buddies he may have known. More than likely, those connections included people known to his parents.
Please understand me on this point: What I have written is not intended to be a judgment leveled at the parents of Sam Bankman-Fried or even him. If they pulled some strings to get the soft treatment Sam has received thus far, it is only because the opportunity exists within the justice system to do so. Therein lies the problem: Justice is not justice if it is not blind and treats all equally.
A former member of the San Carlos City Council and mayor, Matt Grocott has been involved in political policy on the Peninsula for 17 years. He can be reached by email at mattgrocott@comcast.net.
It appears that we have common ground and agree when it comes to equal justice under the law in America. Anyone that doesn’t think that there is white privilege, rich privilege, political privilege or some other type of privilege when it comes to treatment under the law is living in a fantasy world. They need only ask any minority in America.
The part of your article dealing with your friend and the small caliber pistol just doesn’t seem to pass the smell test in my opinion. There must a few facts conveniently left out of the description. I may be wrong but an extremely large bail along with weeks in the county jail doesn’t seem to add up unless things are missing from the story. Things like was he prohibited from possessing a gun? Was the gun stolen or otherwise obtained improperly? Was the gun used in another crime? Was it a ghost gun or Saturday night special as they used to be called? Like I say, just having a small caliber gun in your possession that you forgot to leave home doesn’t seem to fit the large bail, weeks in jail scenario.
Taffy - about ten years ago an immediate member of my family walked out of Macy's with a belt that she had forgotten to take off and put back on the rack. She was arrested for shoplifting and bail was set at $25,000. I kid you not. Don't be surprised at the out-of-wack decisions made by the local judiciary. It took her a while to pay back the posted $2,500 that she owed me. Mr. Grocott's friend may have run into the same judge.
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(3) comments
Mr. Grocott,
It appears that we have common ground and agree when it comes to equal justice under the law in America. Anyone that doesn’t think that there is white privilege, rich privilege, political privilege or some other type of privilege when it comes to treatment under the law is living in a fantasy world. They need only ask any minority in America.
The part of your article dealing with your friend and the small caliber pistol just doesn’t seem to pass the smell test in my opinion. There must a few facts conveniently left out of the description. I may be wrong but an extremely large bail along with weeks in the county jail doesn’t seem to add up unless things are missing from the story. Things like was he prohibited from possessing a gun? Was the gun stolen or otherwise obtained improperly? Was the gun used in another crime? Was it a ghost gun or Saturday night special as they used to be called? Like I say, just having a small caliber gun in your possession that you forgot to leave home doesn’t seem to fit the large bail, weeks in jail scenario.
Taffy - about ten years ago an immediate member of my family walked out of Macy's with a belt that she had forgotten to take off and put back on the rack. She was arrested for shoplifting and bail was set at $25,000. I kid you not. Don't be surprised at the out-of-wack decisions made by the local judiciary. It took her a while to pay back the posted $2,500 that she owed me. Mr. Grocott's friend may have run into the same judge.
Did one expect anything else from the holier than Thou crowd? Who secured that $250 million bond? That would be a worthwhile investigation.
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.