Nikhilesh De is CoinDesk's managing editor for global policy and regulation. He owns marginal amounts of bitcoin and ether.
While Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao’s plea agreement said he couldn’t appeal any sentence over 18 months, there were no clauses preventing U.S. prosecutors from recommending a greater sentence.
Zhao’s sentencing hearing will take place on Tuesday, giving both the U.S. Department of Justice and his defense attorneys a chance to argue over how much prison time he should serve afterin a sentencing memo released last week. The defense asked for house arrest and probation, with no time in prison. The Probation Office recommended five months in its presentence report, according to last week’s defense filing.
“Generally, when we’re negotiating pleas, we’re negotiating things like loss amount and what arguments may be retained by the parties,” she said. “There’s nothing I see in this document that suggests they were limited to the 18 months.” Either way, the decision now rests with the judge, who has broad discretion. He could accept or reject either party’s arguments about the importance of deterrence and what sort of sentence would sufficiently deter potential future crimes by not just Zhao but other members of the crypto community.
“It also happens when the guidelines are viewed as not punitive. That’s often the case because the BSA guidelines are relatively low and don’t take into account the aggravating factors,” they said, adding they were not surprised that there was “a flavor of sanctions violation underneath what is formally a BSA charge.”
Nor does she think the DOJ acted in bad faith here. If the DOJ hadn’t disclosed its position during plea negotiations, that would be a sign of bad faith.
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