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The Noonification: US Prosecutor Argues that SBF Deserves 40-50 Years in Prison (3/20/2024)

USA v. Samuel Bankman-Fried Court Filing, retrieved on March 15, 2024 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This part is 1 of 33. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here The Government respectfully submits this memorandum in advance of the sentencing of Samuel Bankman-Fried, presently scheduled for March 28, 2024, and in response to the defendant’s sentencing memorandum dated February 27, 2024 (“Def. Mem.”). PRELIMINARY STATEMENT Samuel Bankman-Fried was convicted of orchestrating one of the largest financial frauds in history, and what is likely the largest fraud in the last decade. The enormous scale of the fraud at FTX is measured not just by the amount of money that was stolen, although the more-than-$8 billion of customer money that was misappropriated puts this crime in a class of cases that can be counted on one hand. The unprecedented scope of the fraud at FTX may also be measured in the number and types of victims, in the fraud’s geographic reach, and in the breadth and frequency of the unlawful and unethical acts undertaken by the defendant in service of a scheme to use other people’s money for his own benefit and influence. The defendant victimized tens of thousands of people and companies, across several continents, over a period of multiple years. He stole money from customers who entrusted it to him; he lied to investors; he sent fabricated documents to lenders; he pumped millions of dollars in illegal donations into our political system; and he bribed foreign officials. Each of these crimes is worthy of a lengthy sentence. The losses from each of the defendant’s frauds—on customers, investors, and lenders—would alone put the defendant’s advisory sentencing range at the top of the Guidelines. His unlawful political donations to over 300 politicians and political action groups, amounting to in excess of $100 million, is believed to be the largest-ever campaign finance offense. His bribe of Chinese government officials—totaling $150 million—was one of the single largest by an individual. Even following FTX’s bankruptcy and his subsequent arrest, Bankman-Fried shirked responsibility, deflected blame to market events and other individuals, attempted to tamper with witnesses, and lied repeatedly under oath. With all the advantages conferred by a comfortable upbringing, an MIT education, a prestigious start to his career in finance, and a worthy idea for a startup business, Bankman-Fried could have pursued the rewarding, productive, and altruistic life he has sketched out in his sentencing submission. But instead, his life in recent years has been one of unmatched greed and hubris; of ambition and rationalization; and courting risk and gambling repeatedly with other people’s money. And even now Bankman-Fried refuses to admit what he did was wrong. Having set himself on the goal of amassing endless wealth and unlimited power—to the point that he thought he might become President and the world’s first trillionaire—there was little BankmanFried did not do to achieve it. While he did not spend the money he stole on nice clothes or cars, that does not mean his life has not been defined by excess. The trial record puts the lie to the statements in his submission that he was “never motivated by greed” and “eschews materialistic trappings.” Using customers’ and investors’ money, the defendant bought luxury real estate; he made risky investments that he otherwise could not afford; he made charitable donations (for which he still takes credit) using other people’s money; he made political contributions using other people’s money to get unrivaled access to political leaders; he promoted his company in a Super Bowl ad; he named a basketball arena after his company; and he paid for access to celebrities, to name just a few of the things on which he spent money. And unlike so many defendants before this Court, there are no persuasive mitigating conditions to explain his criminal conduct. His crimes are not the product of dire financial circumstances, passion or impulse, or a momentary lapse of judgment. Unlike other white collar offenders, the losses the defendant is responsible for are not borne exclusively by sophisticated investors or extrapolated based on a stock price drop. The victims, on the other hand, include tens of thousands of everyday people. People who entrusted the defendant with their money, and relied on it being there when they wanted to withdraw it. The victims in this case include people who deposited their retirement funds and nest eggs with FTX; they include people in war-torn or financially insecure countries, who counted on FTX as a place to keep money safe; they include people who could not afford to have their money taken or rendered unavailable. They include people who lost their “entire life savings,” no longer have money to pay for a sick family member or children’s education, were deprived of the chance to “break generational poverty,” and are “devastated” and “heartbroken.” So the fact that two years later victims may receive some money back through FTX’s bankruptcy is of little comfort for those victims who needed the money in November 2022. The suffocating sense of dread and despair that victims felt when they could not withdraw their money, their shame and embarrassment, and the resulting damage to lives and businesses, cannot be undone through the bankruptcy. The assertions that customers will be repaid in full omit critical context about the nature of the claims allowed in the bankruptcy. And even as victims are repaid, that is the result of extensive work in the bankruptcy process and criminal forfeiture, not the result of the defendant’s actions, which in many respects have been counterproductive. All of this conduct was willful. In every part of his business, and with respect to each crime committed, the defendant demonstrated a brazen disrespect for the rule of law. He understood the rules, but decided they did not apply to him. He knew what society deemed illegal and unethical, but disregarded that based on a pernicious megalomania guided by the defendant’s own values and sense of superiority. And he knew his customers’ expectations—that he would hold their money safe—but he disregarded them based on a callous belief that he could put their money to better use. The scope, duration, nature, and sheer number of Bankman-Fried’s crimes, the resulting harm they have caused, the willful disregard of the rule of law, and the absence of countervailing mitigating circumstances render him exceptionally deserving of a sentence that is sufficiently severe to provide justice for the defendant’s crimes and to dissuade others from committing similar crimes, and that will permit the defendant to return to liberty only after society can be assured that he will not have the opportunity to turn back to fraud and deceit. Although it is unlikely (but not impossible) that the defendant will work in finance again, and will likely forfeit all of his ill-gotten gains, justice requires that he receive a prison sentence commensurate with the extraordinary dimensions of his crimes. For these reasons, the legitimate purposes of punishment require a sentence of 40 to 50 years’ imprisonment. Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case retrieved on March 15, 2024, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. storage.courtlistener Lead image source: Lam Yik/Bloomberg via Getty Images

US Prosecutor Argues that SBF Deserves 40-50 Years in Prison

ইউএস প্রসিকিউটর যুক্তি দেন যে SBF 40-50 বছরের কারাগারের যোগ্য

US-Staatsanwalt argumentiert, dass SBF 40 bis 50 Jahre Gefängnis verdient

Fiscal estadounidense sostiene que SBF merece entre 40 y 50 años de prisión

Le procureur américain affirme que SBF mérite 40 à 50 ans de prison

अमेरिकी अभियोजक का तर्क है कि एसबीएफ 40-50 साल की जेल का हकदार है

米検察、SBFは懲役40～50年に値すると主張

미국 검찰, SBF가 40~50년 징역형을 받아야 한다고 주장

Promotor dos EUA argumenta que SBF merece 40-50 anos de prisão

Прокурор США утверждает, что SBF заслуживает 40-50 лет тюрьмы

ABD Savcısı SBF'nin 40-50 Yıl Hapis Cezasını Hak Ettiğini Savundu

Công tố viên Hoa Kỳ lập luận rằng SBF đáng phải nhận mức án 40-50 năm tù

美国检察官辩称SBF应被判处40-50年监禁

This article was originally published on ProPublica by . Co-published with . Jeremy Kohler Riverfront Times After the 2014 fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the months of protests that followed, the city of St. Louis was forced to reckon with its Black residents’ longstanding distrust of its police and courts. Kim Gardner emerged as a voice for change. A lifelong resident of St. Louis, she had diverse professional experiences, having worked as a funeral director, a nurse, a lawyer and a state legislator. When campaigning for circuit attorney, the city’s top prosecutor, she focused on the disproportionate frequency of arrests and police officers using force against St. Louis’ Black community. “We need to change decades of old practices that left many in our community distrustful of the criminal justice system as a whole,” , the city’s Black newspaper, just days before her decisive primary victory in August 2016 that all but sealed her general election win. she told The St. Louis American In the last decade, prosecutors in other major American cities also campaigned on promises of systemic reform: Kim Foxx in Chicago, Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, Chesa Boudin in San Francisco. Yet, much like Gardner, these prosecutors have faced resistance from the police and the unions that represent rank-and-file officers. They’ve been accused of being soft on crime and have even been met with political maneuvers aimed at derailing their initiatives. Several have been targeted by efforts to remove them from office or pare away their powers. Boudin lost a recall vote and was removed in June 2022. And Krasner, criticized for his reduced emphasis on prosecuting minor crimes, was impeached by the state legislature in November, although a state court threw out the result. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis has removed elected prosecutors in Tampa and Orlando. He suspended Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren over Warren’s refusal to prosecute offenses related to abortion and gender-related health care. He suspended the state attorney for Orange and Osceola counties, Monique Worrell, because he said she wasn’t tough enough on some serious offenses. Georgia recently became the first state to establish a commission with the authority to discipline and even remove local elected prosecutors. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp framed the law as a way to check “far-left prosecutors.” Gardner, who was reelected in 2020, stepped down in May of 2023 while facing both a lawsuit from the state attorney general that sought her removal and a separate attempt by the Republican-led legislature to curtail her authority. Gardner’s mismanagement of her office played a significant role in her downfall. Reform-minded lawyers who she personally hired had departed. And while judges fumed about prosecutors failing to show up for court, Gardner was moonlighting as a nursing student. Though other prosecutors faced various challenges, there are no widely known instances like that of retired detective Roger Murphey in St. Louis, and hasn’t received any departmental discipline. who has refused to testify in at least nine murder cases “For every progressive prosecutor who’s managed to stick it out, there’s one who’s either been recalled or driven out,” said Lara Bazelon, a University of San Francisco law school professor who volunteered on Boudin’s campaign and serves as chair of the commission he created to review inmates’ claims of innocence. “So it’s a real mix of success and cautionary tales.” She added: “If the police are against you, or literally out to get you, you’re probably not going to be able to last in that job.” Foxx, elected in 2016 and reelected in 2020, announced in April that she will not seek a third term next year, though she said it was not because of resistance from the police. In an interview, Foxx said that even before she took office, the Chicago police union felt threatened by her assertion that Black lives matter and that the criminal justice system could be more fair, particularly to communities of color. It was a signal, she said, “that I was not one of them.” “The reality is we were offering something very different to what was traditionally viewed as the law-and-order approach to prosecution,” Foxx said. “I think it was surprising to folks that prosecutors could be elected addressing these issues.” R. Michael Cassidy, a law professor at Boston College and an expert in prosecutorial ethics, said the Ferguson unrest emphasized the need for change in how police and prosecutors work. He said some prosecutors have failed to manage their relationships with police; prosecutors depend on the officers to bring them cases and to testify in court, but they must conduct oversight of the police as well. Foxx pushed back against any assertion that she didn’t manage her relationship with police. She pointed to a popular Chicago police blog that often refers to her as “Crimesha” — “a play on the word ‘crime’ and what I believe to be a racist insinuation about me being Black with the name ‘-esha.’” The blog has also sexualized her last name by adding a third X and has insinuated that members of her family are connected to gangs. “From the moment we came into office, we reached out to our partners in law enforcement, and what we saw was there was a segment of them who were never going to be satisfied with me in this role because I said ‘Black lives matter,’ because I said ‘We need police accountability,’ because I said that we had a criminal justice system that overly relied on incarceration that targeted Black and brown communities,” she said. She said that she, Gardner and other prosecutors “have been faced with an unprecedented level of hate and vitriol” from the police. “That,” she said, “is the story.” Chicago Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara and other union officials did not respond to requests for comment. But Catanzara told the Chicago Sun-Times in 2020 that the were based on her job performance. union’s complaints about Foxx He said she was a “social activist in an elected law enforcement position” who was unwilling to “faithfully do her job.” Boudin was elected in 2019 on a reform platform. Soon after taking office, he eliminated cash bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies. He also brought for misconduct and announced a plan to . criminal charges against nine city officers compensate victims of police violence But as property crime rates climbed in San Francisco, Boudin came under increased scrutiny. Cassidy said Boudin and other like-minded prosecutors have been scapegoated for isolated incidents or temporary spikes in crime statistics, as if they alone are responsible. In some cities, that has swung public opinion against them. Boudin said the claims were unfair and largely the product of police resistance to his reforms. “We’ve seen, on body-worn camera footage, police officers telling victims there’s nothing they can do and, ‘Don’t forget to vote in the upcoming recall election,’” Boudin said in an interview. Boudin said he and other local prosecutors have found “there is absolutely zero accountability for these officers who engage in explicitly political acts of sabotage or dereliction of duty.” A spokesperson for the San Francisco police union declined to comment. Some prosecutors have held onto their positions despite challenges to their power. In November, veteran public defender Mary Moriarty was elected county attorney for the jurisdiction that includes Minneapolis in the first election since the death there of George Floyd. The same night, Dallas District Attorney by a nearly 20-point margin in spite of over his plan not to prosecute certain low-level offenses. John Creuzot was reelected calls by a police union for his ouster In August 2022, Sarah George, the incumbent state’s attorney in Vermont’s Chittenden County, which includes Burlington, secured her seat with a 20-point victory in the Democratic primary over Ted Kenney, a challenger backed by the police. George had introduced a variety of reforms, including eliminating cash bail and declining to prosecute cases where evidence was obtained during , like those for broken taillights. The Burlington police union called her actions “disastrous” and Kenney argued that the approach made . noncriminal traffic stops streets less safe George, too, has seen police body camera video of officers blaming her for crime. In one video, which she provided to ProPublica, the Riverfront Times and NPR, an officer from a suburban police department about a crack house in their neighborhood. tells a couple that officers can’t do anything He then implores them to vote for Kenney because of George’s “super-progressive, soft-on-crime approach where we arrest the same people daily and they get out the same day.” George said that, with some crime investigations, the police are “not really doing the work that we need to do on the case, and then blaming us for the case not being filed.” The Burlington police union declined to comment. The chiefs of police in Burlington and Winooski, the suburb where the video was taken, did not respond to messages seeking comment. Gardner, too, often faced criticism from police for her reluctance to prosecute cases based on arrests alone. In one notable instance in 2019, she dropped child-endangerment charges against two day care workers who were captured on video as they appeared to encourage toddlers to box using toy Incredible Hulk fists. The police union called for her ouster, writing on Facebook: “The first rule of toddler fight club is … that you prosecute the sadistic promoters of toddler fight club.” In comments made before her resignation, Gardner noted that she had been careful not to file criminal charges in cases where she did not feel there was enough evidence. “What they want me to do is make it look like this job is easy,” she said. “We can’t make things fit and people don’t like that. That’s not what justice is about.” Richard Rosenfeld, a professor emeritus of criminology at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, was who pooled data from 65 major cities and found “no evidence to support the claim that progressive prosecutors were responsible for the increase in homicide during the pandemic or before it.” one of several researchers Indeed, Chicago’s murder rate fell during Foxx’s first years in office, rose during the first years of the pandemic and has been falling this year, city crime statistics show. Philadelphia’s murder rate was in steep decline this year after a precipitous rise that started in 2020. And most categories of crime were in retreat in St. Louis at the time Gardner resigned, while violent crime was up in San Francisco a year after Boudin’s exit, according to statistics. Acknowledging that the St. Louis police commonly blamed Gardner for crime trends, Rosenfeld, a veteran observer of policing in St. Louis, said, “Case not proved, is what I would argue there.” Correction An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin dismissed charges in a rape case in 2021 and that it was a factor in his recall. Oct. 11, 2023: Photo by on Khashayar Kouchpeydeh Unsplash

Reform-Minded Prosecutors Were Undermined by Police and Politicians

This Cop Sabotaged His Own Cases to Undermine a Prosecutor: Why He Did So

This story was originally published on by by and . ProPublica Jennifer Smith Richards Jodi S. Cohen Prosecutors in Illinois have dropped at least 15 court cases that hinged on the word of a former Chicago police officer who’s now charged with perjury and forgery after he got dozens of traffic tickets dismissed by testifying each time that his girlfriend had stolen his car. Jeffrey Kriv is accused of lying under oath 44 times to get out of speeding, parking and red light camera tickets involving his personal vehicles. In his 26 years as a Chicago officer, Kriv was known for being one of the city’s most prolific drunken-driving enforcers, which means many more pending cases in which he was an arresting officer could be in peril. The most recent DUI arrests he made involve allegations of dangerous driving. On just one morning this month, an assistant state’s attorney made motions declining to prosecute seven cases where Kriv was the arresting officer, some of which dated to 2021. The assistant state’s attorney offered no reason, but in court, defense attorneys mentioned Kriv’s alleged credibility issues. “This is the officer who has been charged with a felony,” one defense lawyer told Judge Chloe Pedersen after his client’s DUI case was called. “This is a Kriv matter,” another defense attorney said as his client’s case was dismissed. While Kriv retired in January just before he was charged criminally, he had faced nearly 100 misconduct complaints from citizens and fellow officers in his tenure on the force. ProPublica and the Chicago Tribune previously detailed Kriv’s long history of alleged . misconduct as an officer and his current legal trouble Prosecutors charged him in January with four counts of perjury and five counts of forgery, all felonies, in connection with four of the traffic tickets he accrued. He has pleaded not guilty. The Chicago Police Department knew in early 2022 that the Office of Inspector General was investigating Kriv for lying to get out of tickets. Then, on Oct. 28, the state’s attorney’s office added Kriv to its list of officers whose credibility issues meant the office would not call them to testify in criminal cases, sometimes called the do-not-call list. But the Police Department would not answer ProPublica when asked why it kept Kriv on the streets until January, when it stripped him of police powers. In those few months, Kriv made two dozen arrests and issued seven traffic citations, according to Police Department records obtained by ProPublica. He was the primary arresting officer in 18 of those cases; charges already have been dropped in seven of them. A spokesperson for the Police Department declined to comment. The state’s attorney’s office said there are 10 pending felony cases in which Kriv was the arresting officer. Two cases filed after he was put on the do-not-call list are moving forward; the other eight cases remain under review, a spokesperson said. There may be other cases — most of them likely misdemeanor DUIs — involving Kriv that are still pending. The state’s attorney’s office said it does not track misdemeanors, and the Cook County clerk’s office and chief judge’s office also said they did not have that information. Most DUI cases are misdemeanors, however, and Kriv regularly made about 100 arrests a year on DUI charges, according to annual counts published by an anti-drunken-driving group. Kriv estimated last year that hundreds of his cases might be awaiting an outcome. Kriv’s attorney, Tim Grace, told reporters that he and his client would not comment for this story, though Kriv has twice emailed reporters to defend himself against misconduct complaints and call ProPublica’s reporting biased, including in an email last week. In a 2,000-word email sent in June, he said that he had nearly 150 honorable mentions and two life-saving awards and was consistently one of the city’s top arresting officers for DUI charges. He also criticized other officers, a judge and the Police Department as a whole. “I’ve been on the job for 27 years and I was a worker. Any officer that works will get complaints. Some false, some true,” Kriv wrote. “I could do what many, many officers do and that would be nothing.” Kriv also sent a strongly worded email to a prosecutor last November, while he was still working as a police officer, after he learned he would not be allowed to testify about arrests he made. In the email, he defended his honesty and threatened to “not go out of my way to arrest people for DUI” going forward. “My reputation as a Chicago Police Officer is immaculate and all my testimony on any case that I have been involved in is spot on,” he wrote to Assistant State’s Attorney Emily Leuin, after calling her a coward. ProPublica obtained the email through a public records request. “Go ahead and dismiss my cases where someone was seriously hurt because the offender was drunk. This is something you have to live with but by all accounts, you obviously have no qualms about doing so. I’m sure [anti-drunk-driving groups] will like to know what is going on with the dozens, if not hundreds of cases of mine that are currently pending an outcome,” he wrote. The beginning of an email that Kriv sent to Assistant State’s Attorney Emily Leuin. Credit: Obtained by ProPublica. Redacted by ProPublica Leuin did not respond to a request for comment. Despite his threats, Kriv did make DUI arrests for the rest of his tenure as an officer. He arrested a Chicago man in December 2022 after he said he watched the driver go the wrong way on a one-way street and then go through a stop sign. “Very strong odor of alcoholic beverage on breath, slurred/thick-tongued speech, glassy eyes, confused,” Kriv wrote in the charging documents. That case was dismissed in April. Other cases, meanwhile, are moving forward despite Kriv’s indictment. In traffic court this month, defense attorney Steve Roach asked the prosecutor whether Kriv, who made the arrest, would be subpoenaed in his client’s DUI case. The prosecutor said no, leaving Roach to wonder how the state could continue with its case. “Because you’ve got a primary arresting officer who has an indictment against him which involves questions of one’s honesty, I wouldn’t be playing games with these cases,” Roach said in an interview. The Cook County public defender’s office is representing several people in Kriv’s arrest cases. A spokesperson said that in cases the state continues to pursue, the office will demand trials and the state will have to decide whether to make its cases without Kriv. The collapse of Kriv’s cases shares some similarities with the problematic DUI arrests made by Chicago police officer John Haleas nearly 20 years ago. Even after the police administration confirmed that Haleas had falsified reports in DUI arrests, he remained on duty. (In fact, he is still a Chicago police officer, though he was later convicted of attempted obstruction of justice and the department tried to fire him.) There’s also a key difference between Haleas and Kriv: how the state’s attorney has reacted to pending court cases. The state’s attorney dismissed more than 150 of Haleas’ pending cases when he was found to have lied. The state’s attorney’s office in July made public its list of officers in Cook County who it has barred from testifying in criminal cases — more than 300 officers in all, the vast majority of them from the Chicago Police Department. About 60 officers were added this year, and the office adopted a new policy last month that spells out prosecutors’ duty to disclose its problematic witnesses to defendants. “The culture that allowed disreputable law enforcement officers to testify in court propelled Cook County’s reputation as the wrongful conviction capital of the country,” State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said in a press release about the disclosure list. Chicago has a long history of scandalous cops whose cases fell apart when their own corruption or misdeeds were revealed. Over the years, officials have grappled with how to handle the fallout in court, as well as what to disclose to defendants and the public about these cases. A spokesperson for the state’s attorney’s office said the list of officers with credibility issues is public and that disclosures to defendants would be made when evidence is typically shared. ProPublica contacted more than a dozen defense attorneys currently representing clients arrested by Kriv, and only one said he had been notified by a prosecutor that Kriv was barred from testifying. Other lawyers were unaware that Kriv would not be called as a witness. One said the state’s attorney’s office had left his case “in limbo” and he is skeptical that the prosecutor can mount a case without Kriv. “Every time I show up, the state’s attorney doesn’t know what’s going on,” said defense attorney Marco Rodriguez, who is representing a client in a DUI case. Among the Kriv cases that have been dismissed is one from October 2022 involving a woman who was idling in a crosswalk but asleep, according to Kriv’s police report. He noted in the report that there was vomit on the car seat and on the woman’s pants. Her blood alcohol content was 0.19%, more than twice the legal limit to drive, according to the report, obtained through a public records request. Prosecutors dropped the case against her in March. Even in his last weeks as a police officer, Kriv arrested at least five people over four days on DUI charges, including a 41-year-old driver he said he’d found on Dec. 10 passed out behind the wheel of his running Honda Accord in the middle of a dead-end street. The man “seemed confused” and the “whole front end” of his car was damaged and the tires shredded. Kriv noted that the driver had an explanation for the car’s damage. He wrote that the man “stated his car was like that from his girlfriend as it was her fault previously.” That case also has been dismissed. Photo by on Giammarco Boscaro Unsplash

Prosecutors Were Forced to Drop Cases Because They Were Linked to Ex-Cop Accused of Perjury

As last week's news of the US's successful prosecution of Binance's Changpeng Zhao broke, investors and crypto enthusiasts worldwide have been left pondering about the future of the space, as the removal of a top executive at the world's largest exchange is bound to have implications. cryptocurrency CZ (as he is affectionately referred to in the crypto community) agreed to plead guilty to a criminal charge of "failure to protect against money laundering," as well as pay $50m in penalties and is due to be sentenced in February. But, as governments continue their attempt to clean up the Wild West reputation of digital assets, what does this mean for crypto moving ahead? A change is coming - for the better! “[CZ’s departure] might mark the end of the ‘cult of personality’ in crypto,” said , co-founder of trading firm Dexterity Capital. “The space still has its heroes and anti-heroes, but it’s also maturing in a way that good projects are backed by deep teams, and not just one person in the spotlight.” Michael Safai Also in the news currently is Sam Bankman-Fried, who was convicted of fraud and money laundering charges and is now expected to spend decades in prison. Once the public face of the crypto market, his downfall was yet another major blow to public perception of the digital asset space, although others think that picking out the one bad apple will be good for the rest of the industry. Paul Brody, the head of blockchain at financial consulting firm EY, calls the outcome of Bankman-Fried’s trial and , the chairman of blockchain gaming company Animoca Brands, says it marks a “new beginning” for the industry. a “wonderful moment for crypto,” Yat Siu A cleanup of bad actors and a focus on transparency, trust, and legitimacy are both crucial signifiers that the crypto space is indeed maturing, with market sentiment continuing to be bullish as we approach 2024. However, there is also some concern that TradFi will likely take over the space, as more and more traditional financial institutions like BlackRock, Grayscale, and Fidelity have applied for spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds. This is a clear signal that fears surrounding a takeover by the very established organizations some crypto natives want to avoid may be imminent, including… CEXs in the hands of TradFi While CEXs have been one of the major crypto sectors to gain notoriety, it isn’t expected that they will drop off; rather, they will evolve to being legally accountable - no more Bahamas-based entities and offshore centralized exchanges. It is suggested that will expand and more will be run by traditional institutions. Singapore’s DBS Digital Exchange would seem to be an example of what Lee is getting at, though for now, the DBS platform, or DDEx, only handles business from institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals. strictly regulated centralized platforms And perhaps the traditional players or more institutional players coming into the crypto space will extrapolate the best of the traditional practices into the crypto side. For those traders and investors who are not confident using DEXs, this is good and probably welcome news. What’s Next for Crypto? 2023 has been a hell of a ride for all of us degens, but hopefully, there are also some key takeaways and lessons to be learned from the scandals, crises, and bad press we’ve seen. An obvious one is that regulation, and the scrutiny that comes with it is unavoidable. “If anything, we increasingly see the importance of cooperating with authorities for the crypto industry's long-term growth and public adoption,” says Yang Lan of . “Only through compliance with growing regulatory norms will we create the environment for cryptocurrencies' long-term success.” Fiat24 Security remains a constant area of focus for the industry, and robust measures must be in place in order to safeguard both individual investors and the broader legitimacy of crypto. We have also witnessed a growing convergence between TradFi and DeFi as banks and financial institutions explore partnerships and collaborations, something that could address both the regulatory and security challenges aforementioned. Wherever we’re headed, one thing is clear - government-backed regulators are cracking the whip across the existing industry, and only those willing to comply and act legitimately will succeed in the long run.

What impact will the Binance prosecution have on Crypto?

This story was originally published on by . Co-published with . ProPublica Brett Murphy El Diario Senior prosecutors in one of New York’s largest counties have known for years that drunk driving convictions of Spanish-speaking motorists may have been tainted by faulty evidence. But the Westchester District Attorney’s Office failed to investigate until defense attorneys contacted the unit that reviews wrongful convictions. From at least 2014 to 2018, records show, New York State Police troopers gave some drivers mistranslated instructions about what it means to refuse a blood alcohol test. Legal experts, including three former prosecutors in Westchester, told ProPublica that those incorrect directions could, at a minimum, confuse or mislead drivers and may have pressured some into a decision that resulted in severe consequences. Westchester prosecutors were alerted to the issue at least three times, in 2018, 2019 and 2021, records show. “These are folks that are wrongfully convicted,” said Joseph Margulies, a government and law professor at Cornell University. He and others said the district attorney’s office — currently led by Miriam Rocah, who was elected in 2020 — should have been investigating every case that may have included the forms since its prosecutors became aware of the faulty instructions. Rocah declined requests to discuss what steps she’s taking to address the issue. Spokesperson Jin Whang said the office’s conviction review unit received a list of 263 DWI arrests from the police in February 2022. “We’re still combing through paper,” she said, acknowledging progress has been slow due to the unit’s small staff and more urgent priorities, compounded by tangled police records. Whang added that prosecutors recently decided, amid questions from ProPublica, that they will consider moving to vacate sentences. When a driver suspected of being drunk refuses a chemical test for alcohol in their system, police in New York, like in many other places, are required by law to explain that the motorist’s , whether or not they are found guilty, and that their refusal can be used as evidence against them. license will be suspended A chemical test typically measures blood alcohol content in someone’s breath, blood or urine. But some state police troopers in Westchester told Spanish-speaking drivers something different. Officers in Troop K gave those motorists a sheet of paper that described a refusal as tantamount to being found guilty for driving drunk. It told drivers that authorities “will punish you as being guilty” for not taking the test — which is a significant departure from the actual law, which only states the refusal can be used as evidence against them. The warning also falsely stated that officers “are going to examine your blood,” instead of requesting that drivers take the test, which is often a Breathalyzer. ProPublica consulted with Spanish-language and legal authorities at five universities, who said the mistranslated warning had several deeply flawed passages. “It looks like they’re really coercing a ‘yes,’” said Amber Baylor, a law professor at Columbia University who reviewed some of the records. She said immigrant drivers may feel especially susceptible to that kind of pressure given the potential consequences: “your job going up in flames, losing your livelihood, being separated from your family or losing your ability to stay in the country.” In an email statement, Beau Duffy, a state police spokesperson, said the form “was not an official document that was created, distributed or approved” by the agency, which means it cannot easily be tracked in department records. He said he didn’t know when the Spanish warning was first used or where it had come from but said it is no longer in circulation. “We believe they were used only in Westchester County,” Duffy said, adding that the state police do not currently issue written refusal warnings in Spanish. The agency tells troopers who don’t speak Spanish to use a telephone translation service contracted by the department. It’s unclear how many drivers have been impacted. For context, state police troopers arrested at least 56 Hispanic motorists on drunk driving charges in Westchester last year and 79 in 2021, according to . state court data (The state does not maintain local court records from previous years.) The data does not indicate whether or not those drivers spoke only Spanish. Around 65,000 adults in Westchester speak Spanish and limited or no English, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. Whang said prosecutors didn’t believe that it was fair to cast all convictions involving the mistranslated form as wrongful. But blood alcohol content is typically the linchpin of successful prosecutions. Legal experts compared the pre-test warning to a Miranda warning, which allows suspects to make informed decisions. “That’s why we have a process,” said Cornell’s Margulies. Whang said the conviction review unit, which Rocah created shortly after she took office, first learned about the translation issue in late October 2021, when defense attorneys with the Legal Aid Society asked for help getting a list of potentially affected DWI cases from Troop K. The unit received information on about 260 arrests made between 2010 and 2019 and has so far reviewed 44 of them, according to Whang, all of which resulted in a conviction. Five of those 44 cases involved the mistranslated form. Prosecutors have not yet notified the attorneys in those cases. But Whang said the DA’s office intends to do that and to come up with a “remedial course of action” once the conviction review unit has gone through the remaining cases. She noted that there are only three attorneys in the unit, which is independent from the rest of the office and typically focus on cases of egregious misconduct and those where someone may be exonerated by new evidence, including DNA. In November 2018, a defense attorney for a Hispanic motorist accused of drunk driving discovered the mistranslated warnings and brought them to the attention of Livia Rodriguez, who was a senior assistant district attorney at the time and still holds that role. Rodriguez told a judge she thought the issues were valid and offered reduced charges, according to a transcript of the hearing. It’s unclear if Rodriguez alerted her superiors or the state police at that time. She declined ProPublica’s request for an interview and referred questions to Whang, who said she had no comment about how Rodriguez handled the situation at the time. The faulty forms appeared during a hearing in 2019 as part of another of Rodriguez’s prosecutions. Defense attorney James Timko noticed the incorrect language and told the court that his client’s refusal should be inadmissible. “The police have ‘muddied the waters’ by providing a defendant a woefully inartful, inaccurate and affirmatively misleading statement,” he wrote in a court filing. In an interview with ProPublica, Timko said, “It was a disaster.” Still, the judge allowed the driver’s refusal into evidence because, she said, he understood English well enough during his 2017 arrest that it didn’t matter whether the Spanish warning was defective. Timko wrote an email to Michael Borrelli, the DWI coordinator for the district attorney at the time, and said the judge’s ruling would likely be reversed on appeal because the refusal warnings were so badly mistranslated. Borelli agreed and offered less serious charges. “It wasn’t even close,” Borrelli said in an interview. “Even someone with a fourth grade Spanish would have been like, ‘What?’” Borrelli said he told state police personnel there that he never wanted to see those forms used again. (Duffy, at the state police, said the department had no documentation of that conversation and could not find anyone who recalled it.) “I’m sure I reported it up the chain of command and I’m sure I got orders,” Borrelli added, but he did not remember any internal effort at the DA’s office to look at past cases that may have been affected. Whang was also not aware of any such effort at the time. “We cannot speak for the decision making — the why or the how — prior to this administration,” she said, noting that Rocah took office in early 2021. Two years went by before the issue surfaced a third time. Katie Wasserman, a defense attorney with Legal Aid in Westchester, told the court in July 2021 that the state police had given the wrong translation to another driver in a case that dated back years. Duffy told ProPublica that by then the forms were no longer in use. “The District Attorney’s Office is aware of the improper warning as it had been brought to their attention on at least two documented occasions in 2018 and then again in 2019,” Wasserman wrote in the filing. The driver didn’t have correct information when he decided to refuse the test, Wasserman argued, so his refusal should not have been allowed to be used against him during the plea negotiations. “I would never have made the decision to plead guilty to a misdemeanor,” the driver, who has other drunk driving convictions, wrote in an affidavit. He wrote that he feared he may get deported and be permanently separated from his family as a result of the conviction. In the months that followed, senior officials in the DA’s office held a series of meetings about how to handle the problem. Whang said the conviction review unit didn’t learn of the issue until Wasserman called the division’s chief, Anastasia Heeger, in late October to ask for help getting information from the state police about other cases impacted by the faulty forms. “After [Heeger] got the call, she immediately said, ‘Yes I’ll join you,’” Whang said. Wasserman said in an interview that too much time has elapsed since then and something substantive should have happened by now. “It’s just not a priority,” she said. “Truth is, they've been sitting on it.” Photo by on Roman Koester Unsplash

Tainted DWI Evidence Was Ignored for Years by New York Prosecutors

নিউ ইয়র্ক প্রসিকিউটরদের দ্বারা কলঙ্কিত DWI প্রমাণ বছরের পর বছর উপেক্ষা করা হয়েছিল

Verfälschte DWI-Beweise wurden von der New Yorker Staatsanwaltschaft jahrelang ignoriert

Los fiscales de Nueva York ignoraron durante años pruebas contaminadas de DWI

Les preuves entachées de CFA ont été ignorées pendant des années par les procureurs de New York

न्यूयॉर्क अभियोजकों द्वारा वर्षों तक दागी डीडब्ल्यूआई साक्ष्यों को नजरअंदाज किया गया

汚染されたDWI証拠はニューヨーク検察によって何年も無視された

뉴욕 검찰은 오염된 음주 운전 증거를 수년간 무시했습니다

Evidências contaminadas de DWI foram ignoradas durante anos pelos promotores de Nova York

Прокуратура Нью-Йорка годами игнорировала доказательства, подтверждающие факт вождения в нетрезвом виде

Kusurlu DWI Kanıtları New York Savcıları Tarafından Yıllarca Göz Ardı Edildi

Bằng chứng DWI bị nhiễm độc đã bị các công tố viên New York bỏ qua trong nhiều năm

受污染的酒驾证据多年来一直被纽约检察官忽视

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. SAMUEL BANKMAN-FRIED Court Filing Lewis A. Kaplan, December 9, 2022 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This is part 23 of 25. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here ARGUMENT III. The Bank Fraud, Unlicensed Money Transmitting, and FCPA Conspiracy Charges (Counts 9, 10, and 13) Violate the Rule of Specialty and Must Be Dismissed. B. The Bahamas Has Not Given Its Express Consent to Counts 9, 10 and 13 as Required Under the Extradition Treaty. The Government may only prosecute Mr. Bankman-Fried for Counts 9, 10 and 13 if it follows the procedure for obtaining the Bahamas’s consent set forth in the Treaty, which the defense understands it has not. As stated above, Article 14 of the Extradition Treaty provides that an extradited defendant “may only be detained, tried, or punished in the Requesting State for the offense for which extradition was granted, or – . . . any offense in response of which the executive authority of the Requested State, in accordance with its laws, has consented to the person’s detention, trial, or punishment. . . .” Ex. 2 at SDNY_03_01098074 to -8075 (emphasis added). Thus, the plain terms of the Extradition Treaty require that the Government obtain the express consent of the Bahamas to prosecute Mr. Bankman-Fried on any new charges brought after Mr. Bankman-Fried’s extradition—silence cannot suffice for consent. See Yoo, 43 F.4th at 71–72 (“In interpreting both statutes and treaties, courts seek to avoid readings that render statutory language surplusage or redundant. But where the language of a treaty is plain, a court must refrain from amending it because to do so would be to make, not construe, a treaty.”) (citations and quotation marks omitted); see also Lewis Decl. ¶¶ 4, 45, 54-65, 69 (Article 14(1)(b) of the Extradition Treaty and Section 7(4)(a)(iii) of the Extradition Act require the Bahamas’s express consent to new charges different than those on which extradition was granted). As noted above, the defense understands the Government has informed the Bahamas of the new charges added in the S3 Indictment and S5 Indictment, but the Bahamas has not consented to those charges. See Letter from Nicolas Roos et al. to the Honorable Lewis A. Kaplan, February 22, 2023, ECF No. 84; Sealed Order at 1, Mar. 28, 2023, ECF No. 114. That the Government felt the need to notify the Bahamas at all of the S3 Indictment and the S5 24 Indictment indicates it recognizes that Counts 9, 10 and 13 are distinct from the offenses and conduct encompassed by the Warrant of Surrender and that the Bahamas’s consent is required to proceed on those charges. 1. In the Defense’s Understanding, the Government Has Not Provided Evidence Sufficient to Satisfy the Dual Criminality Requirement and the Bahamas is Thus Unable to Give Its Consent. Moreover, a condition precedent to obtaining the Bahamas’s consent is the Government’s provision of information to the Bahamas to enable it to determine whether Counts 9, 10 and 13 satisfy the dual criminality requirement. The defense is not aware of the Government providing any such information to the Bahamas. Indeed, when asked to provide copies of any such communications, the Government declined to do, only producing the formal extradition documents in the possession of the United States Attorney’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Thus, the Bahamas lacks the information necessary to determine whether dual criminality is satisfied and cannot consent to the addition of Counts 9, 10 and 13. Article 14(1)(b) of the Extradition Treaty provides that the Bahamas can only consent to the addition of offenses “in accordance with its laws” and after requiring the submission of documents under Article 8, including “a statement of the facts of the case” and “such evidence as would justify the committal for trial of the person if the offense had been committed in the Requested State or as would justify the committal for extradition of the person in accordance with the laws of the Requested State.” Ex. 2 at SDNY_03_01098067, -8068, -8075. The Bahamas Extradition Act in turn provides that the Minister can give consent only for “extraditable offence[s],” meaning offenses for which “the act or omission constituting the offence, or the equivalent act of omission, would constitute an offence against the law of The Bahamas if it took place within The Bahamas,” i.e., the dual criminality requirement. Ex. 3, §§ 5(1)(b), 7(4)(a)(iii); Lewis Decl. ¶ 4, 56-65, 69. Read together, these provisions mean the Government must submit to the Bahamas sufficient evidence to allow the Bahamas to determine whether the offenses on which extradition is sought satisfy the dual criminality requirement. That the Minister must conduct a dual criminality analysis prior to consenting to any new charges is another reason why, in addition to the express language of Article 14(1)(b), silence on the part of the Bahamas cannot be construed as consent. See id. ¶¶ 4, 63. Here, the defense is not aware of any information the Government has provided to the Bahamas that satisfies the Government’s treaty obligations and enables the Bahamas to determine whether the conduct underlying the new charges would be considered criminal in the Bahamas and thus satisfy the dual criminality requirement. The importance of holding the Government to its obligations under the Extradition Treaty is underscored by the fact that there is clear authority holding that conduct that may violate the FCPA is not considered criminal in the Bahamas. The United Kingdom’s Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the highest court of appeal for the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, held in 2012 that charges under the FCPA were not extraditable offenses because Bahamian law does not prohibit foreign bribery. See Ex. 5 (Superintendent of Her Majesty’s Foxhill Prison and the Government of the United States of America v. Viktor Kozeny, [2012] UKPC 10 Privy Council Appeal No. 0073 of 2010 (appeal taken from Bah.) at [50]-[53]; Lewis Decl. ¶ 64. “[I]n mulling dual criminality concerns, courts are duty bound to defer to a surrendering sovereign’s reasonable determination that the offense in question is extraditable.” United States v. Saccoccia, 58 F.3d 754, 766 (1st Cir. 1995). Thus, the Privy Council’s opinion in Kozeny must be accorded great deference and establishes that the FCPA charge against Mr. Bankman-Fried runs afoul of the dual criminality requirement. Allowing the Government to spurn its obligations to proffer evidence to satisfy the dual criminality requirement here would allow the United States 26 to substitute its own judgment for the clear directive from the requested state regarding interpretation of its own laws and violate principles of international comity. Thus, the bank fraud, unlicensed money transmitting, and FCPA conspiracy charges (Counts 9, 10 and 13) must be dismissed due to the Government’s failure to proffer evidence sufficient to satisfy the dual criminality requirement under the Extradition Treaty. Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case S5 22 Cr. 673 (LAK) retrieved on September 1, 2023, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. Storage.Courtlistener

The US May Only Prosecute SBF on Post-Extradition Charges if the Bahamas Gives its Consent

THE CASE FOR THE PROSECUTION

Anne of Avonlea by L. M. Montgomery, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . Poetry and Prose Chapter XXIX - Poetry and Prose For the next month Anne lived in what, for Avonlea, might be called a whirl of excitement. The preparation of her own modest outfit for Redmond was of secondary importance. Miss Lavendar was getting ready to be married and the stone house was the scene of endless consultations and plannings and discussions, with Charlotta the Fourth hovering on the outskirts of things in agitated delight and wonder. Then the dressmaker came, and there was the rapture and wretchedness of choosing fashions and being fitted. Anne and Diana spent half their time at Echo Lodge and there were nights when Anne could not sleep for wondering whether she had done right in advising Miss Lavendar to select brown rather than navy blue for her traveling dress, and to have her gray silk made princess. Everybody concerned in Miss Lavendar’s story was very happy. Paul Irving rushed to Green Gables to talk the news over with Anne as soon as his father had told him. “I knew I could trust father to pick me out a nice little second mother,” he said proudly. “It’s a fine thing to have a father you can depend on, teacher. I just love Miss Lavendar. Grandma is pleased, too. She says she’s real glad father didn’t pick out an American for his second wife, because, although it turned out all right the first time, such a thing wouldn’t be likely to happen twice. Mrs. Lynde says she thoroughly approves of the match and thinks its likely Miss Lavendar will give up her queer notions and be like other people, now that she’s going to be married. But I hope she won’t give her queer notions up, teacher, because I like them. And I don’t want her to be like other people. There are too many other people around as it is. You know, teacher.” Charlotta the Fourth was another radiant person. “Oh, Miss Shirley, ma’am, it has all turned out so beautiful. When Mr. Irving and Miss Lavendar come back from their tower I’m to go up to Boston and live with them . . . and me only fifteen, and the other girls never went till they were sixteen. Ain’t Mr. Irving splendid? He just worships the ground she treads on and it makes me feel so queer sometimes to see the look in his eyes when he’s watching her. It beggars description, Miss Shirley, ma’am. I’m awful thankful they’re so fond of each other. It’s the best way, when all’s said and done, though some folks can get along without it. I’ve got an aunt who has been married three times and says she married the first time for love and the last two times for strictly business, and was happy with all three except at the times of the funerals. But I think she took a resk, Miss Shirley, ma’am.” “Oh, it’s all so romantic,” breathed Anne to Marilla that night. “If I hadn’t taken the wrong path that day we went to Mr. Kimball’s I’d never have known Miss Lavendar; and if I hadn’t met her I’d never have taken Paul there . . . and he’d never have written to his father about visiting Miss Lavendar just as Mr. Irving was starting for San Francisco. Mr. Irving says whenever he got that letter he made up his mind to send his partner to San Francisco and come here instead. He hadn’t heard anything of Miss Lavendar for fifteen years. Somebody had told him then that she was to be married and he thought she was and never asked anybody anything about her. And now everything has come right. And I had a hand in bringing it about. Perhaps, as Mrs. Lynde says, everything is foreordained and it was bound to happen anyway. But even so, it’s nice to think one was an instrument used by predestination. Yes indeed, it’s very romantic.” “I can’t see that it’s so terribly romantic at all,” said Marilla rather crisply. Marilla thought Anne was too worked up about it and had plenty to do with getting ready for college without “traipsing” to Echo Lodge two days out of three helping Miss Lavendar. “In the first place two young fools quarrel and turn sulky; then Steve Irving goes to the States and after a spell gets married up there and is perfectly happy from all accounts. Then his wife dies and after a decent interval he thinks he’ll come home and see if his first fancy’ll have him. Meanwhile, she’s been living single, probably because nobody nice enough came along to want her, and they meet and agree to be married after all. Now, where is the romance in all that?” “Oh, there isn’t any, when you put it that way,” gasped Anne, rather as if somebody had thrown cold water over her. “I suppose that’s how it looks in prose. But it’s very different if you look at it through poetry . . . and I think it’s nicer . . .” Anne recovered herself and her eyes shone and her cheeks flushed . . . “to look at it through poetry.” Marilla glanced at the radiant young face and refrained from further sarcastic comments. Perhaps some realization came to her that after all it was better to have, like Anne, “the vision and the faculty divine” . . . that gift which the world cannot bestow or take away, of looking at life through some transfiguring . . . or revealing? . . . medium, whereby everything seemed apparelled in celestial light, wearing a glory and a freshness not visible to those who, like herself and Charlotta the Fourth, looked at things only through prose. “When’s the wedding to be?” she asked after a pause. “The last Wednesday in August. They are to be married in the garden under the honeysuckle trellis . . . the very spot where Mr. Irving proposed to her twenty-five years ago. Marilla, that is romantic, even in prose. There’s to be nobody there except Mrs. Irving and Paul and Gilbert and Diana and I, and Miss Lavendar’s cousins. And they will leave on the six o’clock train for a trip to the Pacific coast. When they come back in the fall Paul and Charlotta the Fourth are to go up to Boston to live with them. But Echo Lodge is to be left just as it is. . . only of course they’ll sell the hens and cow, and board up the windows . . . and every summer they’re coming down to live in it. I’m so glad. It would have hurt me dreadfully next winter at Redmond to think of that dear stone house all stripped and deserted, with empty rooms . . . or far worse still, with other people living in it. But I can think of it now, just as I’ve always seen it, waiting happily for the summer to bring life and laughter back to it again.” There was more romance in the world than that which had fallen to the share of the middle-aged lovers of the stone house. Anne stumbled suddenly on it one evening when she went over to Orchard Slope by the wood cut and came out into the Barry garden. Diana Barry and Fred Wright were standing together under the big willow. Diana was leaning against the gray trunk, her lashes cast down on very crimson cheeks. One hand was held by Fred, who stood with his face bent toward her, stammering something in low earnest tones. There were no other people in the world except their two selves at that magic moment; so neither of them saw Anne, who, after one dazed glance of comprehension, turned and sped noiselessly back through the spruce wood, never stopping till she gained her own gable room, where she sat breathlessly down by her window and tried to collect her scattered wits. “Diana and Fred are in love with each other,” she gasped. “Oh, it does seem so . . . so . . . so hopelessly grown up.” Anne, of late, had not been without her suspicions that Diana was proving false to the melancholy Byronic hero of her early dreams. But as “things seen are mightier than things heard,” or suspected, the realization that it was actually so came to her with almost the shock of perfect surprise. This was succeeded by a queer, little lonely feeling . . . as if, somehow, Diana had gone forward into a new world, shutting a gate behind her, leaving Anne on the outside. “Things are changing so fast it almost frightens me,” Anne thought, a little sadly. “And I’m afraid that this can’t help making some difference between Diana and me. I’m sure I can’t tell her all my secrets after this . . . she might tell Fred. And what can she see in Fred? He’s very nice and jolly . . . but he’s just Fred Wright.” It is always a very puzzling question . . . what can somebody see in somebody else? But how fortunate after all that it is so, for if everybody saw alike . . . well, in that case, as the old Indian said, “Everybody would want my squaw.” It was plain that Diana did see something in Fred Wright, however Anne’s eyes might be holden. Diana came to Green Gables the next evening, a pensive, shy young lady, and told Anne the whole story in the dusky seclusion of the east gable. Both girls cried and kissed and laughed. “I’m so happy,” said Diana, “but it does seem ridiculous to think of me being engaged.” “What is it really like to be engaged?” asked Anne curiously. “Well, that all depends on who you’re engaged to,” answered Diana, with that maddening air of superior wisdom always assumed by those who are engaged over those who are not. “It’s perfectly lovely to be engaged to Fred . . . but I think it would be simply horrid to be engaged to anyone else.” “There’s not much comfort for the rest of us in that, seeing that there is only one Fred,” laughed Anne. “Oh, Anne, you don’t understand,” said Diana in vexation. “I didn’t mean that . . . it’s so hard to explain. Never mind, you’ll understand sometime, when your own turn comes.” “Bless you, dearest of Dianas, I understand now. What is an imagination for if not to enable you to peep at life through other people’s eyes?” “You must be my bridesmaid, you know, Anne. Promise me that . . . wherever you may be when I’m married.” “I’ll come from the ends of the earth if necessary,” promised Anne solemnly. “Of course, it won’t be for ever so long yet,” said Diana, blushing. “Three years at the very least . . . for I’m only eighteen and mother says no daughter of hers shall be married before she’s twenty-one. Besides, Fred’s father is going to buy the Abraham Fletcher farm for him and he says he’s got to have it two thirds paid for before he’ll give it to him in his own name. But three years isn’t any too much time to get ready for housekeeping, for I haven’t a speck of fancy work made yet. But I’m going to begin crocheting doilies tomorrow. Myra Gillis had thirty-seven doilies when she was married and I’m determined I shall have as many as she had.” “I suppose it would be perfectly impossible to keep house with only thirty-six doilies,” conceded Anne, with a solemn face but dancing eyes. Diana looked hurt. “I didn’t think you’d make fun of me, Anne,” she said reproachfully. “Dearest, I wasn’t making fun of you,” cried Anne repentantly. “I was only teasing you a bit. I think you’ll make the sweetest little housekeeper in the world. And I think it’s perfectly lovely of you to be planning already for your home o’dreams.” Anne had no sooner uttered the phrase, “home o’dreams,” than it captivated her fancy and she immediately began the erection of one of her own. It was, of course, tenanted by an ideal master, dark, proud, and melancholy; but oddly enough, Gilbert Blythe persisted in hanging about too, helping her arrange pictures, lay out gardens, and accomplish sundry other tasks which a proud and melancholy hero evidently considered beneath his dignity. Anne tried to banish Gilbert’s image from her castle in Spain but, somehow, he went on being there, so Anne, being in a hurry, gave up the attempt and pursued her aerial architecture with such success that her “home o’dreams” was built and furnished before Diana spoke again. “I suppose, Anne, you must think it’s funny I should like Fred so well when he’s so different from the kind of man I’ve always said I would marry . . . the tall, slender kind? But somehow I wouldn’t want Fred to be tall and slender . . . because, don’t you see, he wouldn’t be Fred then. Of course,” added Diana rather dolefully, “we will be a dreadfully pudgy couple. But after all that’s better than one of us being short and fat and the other tall and lean, like Morgan Sloane and his wife. Mrs. Lynde says it always makes her think of the long and short of it when she sees them together.” “Well,” said Anne to herself that night, as she brushed her hair before her gilt framed mirror, “I am glad Diana is so happy and satisfied. But when my turn comes . . . if it ever does . . . I do hope there’ll be something a little more thrilling about it. But then Diana thought so too, once. I’ve heard her say time and again she’d never get engaged any poky commonplace way . . . he’d have to do something splendid to win her. But she has changed. Perhaps I’ll change too. But I won’t . . . and I’m determined I won’t. Oh, I think these engagements are dreadfully unsettling things when they happen to your intimate friends.” About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. L. M. Montgomery (2022). Anne of Avonlea. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/47/pg47-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html. The lead image was generated using HackerNoon's Stable Disffusion Al Image Generator feature, via the prompt "Anne of Avonlea".

Poetry and Prose

As we embark further into the digital age, the interplay between technology and traditional roles continues to evolve. , a recent entrant into the educational technology space, presents an intriguing case study. This app leverages two groundbreaking technologies developed by , a sophisticated language model, and DALL-E, an AI system capable of creating images from text descriptions - to generate children's stories. While the concept presents an exciting step forward in leveraging AI technology, it's not without its potential drawbacks. StoryBooks OpenAI - ChatGPT “Prose” of AI Storytelling The prospect of creating stories with AI carries several advantages, with accessibility and customization standing out as key benefits. Firstly, an AI such as can generate an almost infinite number of unique, engaging stories, offering a practically limitless library for young readers. This can encourage children to read more, improving literacy and fostering a love for reading from a young age. ChatGPT Secondly, the customization potential is vast. ChatGPT can tailor the story to a child's interests, creating narratives featuring their favorite animals, characters, or themes. It could also adapt the complexity of language to match the child's reading level, providing a customized learning experience that evolves with the child. Thirdly, the integration of adds another dimension to this personalized storytelling. This AI system can generate unique illustrations to accompany the narrative, further enhancing the child's imaginative and visual engagement with the story. DALL-E Cons of AI Storytelling However, the StoryBooks concept also raises a number of considerations that should be critically explored. An important concern is the loss of human touch and creativity in storytelling. Traditional children's stories often carry a specific moral or lesson, carefully embedded within the narrative by human authors who understand complex social and emotional concepts. While ChatGPT can mimic human writing styles, it doesn't possess a real understanding of these values. This could lead to stories lacking the depth and nuance that help children navigate real-world situations. In addition, there is the risk of unintended content generation. AI models like ChatGPT and DALL-E can sometimes generate content that is inappropriate or unexpected due to the unpredictability inherent in the AI’s creative process. This would need stringent controls and oversight, adding a layer of complexity in terms of content moderation. Lastly, there is the issue of . To provide personalized stories, the app would likely need access to certain information about the child, raising questions about what data is collected, how it is used, and who has access to it. data privacy and security Framing the Discussion In the grand scheme of technological advancement, the idea of using AI for children's storytelling is just the tip of the iceberg. It opens up a larger conversation about the roles we want AI to play in our lives and the lives of our children. StoryBooks is undeniably impressive, with the potential to revolutionize how we approach children’s reading and learning. Yet, as with any application of AI, we must approach it thoughtfully. Can we integrate AI technologies in a way that maintains the heart and soul of storytelling while capitalizing on the advantages that these technologies can offer? Can we ensure a safe and positive user experience? The answer likely lies in balance and collaboration. As technologists, educators, and parents, we must work together to create a framework that harnesses the benefits of AI storytelling while addressing its challenges. And in doing so, we might just write a new chapter in the story of AI and education.

AI-Generated Stories for Kids: The Prose and Cons

The Galloping Troika. The End Of The Prosecutor’s Speech

The Prosecutor’s Speech. Sketches Of Character

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . The Prosecutor Catches Mitya Chapter VI. The Prosecutor Catches Mitya Something utterly unexpected and amazing to Mitya followed. He could never, even a minute before, have conceived that any one could behave like that to him, Mitya Karamazov. What was worst of all, there was something humiliating in it, and on their side something “supercilious and scornful.” It was nothing to take off his coat, but he was asked to undress further, or rather not asked but “commanded,” he quite understood that. From pride and contempt he submitted without a word. Several peasants accompanied the lawyers and remained on the same side of the curtain. “To be ready if force is required,” thought Mitya, “and perhaps for some other reason, too.” “Well, must I take off my shirt, too?” he asked sharply, but Nikolay Parfenovitch did not answer. He was busily engaged with the prosecutor in examining the coat, the trousers, the waistcoat and the cap; and it was evident that they were both much interested in the scrutiny. “They make no bones about it,” thought Mitya, “they don’t keep up the most elementary politeness.” “I ask you for the second time—need I take off my shirt or not?” he said, still more sharply and irritably. “Don’t trouble yourself. We will tell you what to do,” Nikolay Parfenovitch said, and his voice was positively peremptory, or so it seemed to Mitya. Meantime a consultation was going on in undertones between the lawyers. There turned out to be on the coat, especially on the left side at the back, a huge patch of blood, dry, and still stiff. There were bloodstains on the trousers, too. Nikolay Parfenovitch, moreover, in the presence of the peasant witnesses, passed his fingers along the collar, the cuffs, and all the seams of the coat and trousers, obviously looking for something—money, of course. He didn’t even hide from Mitya his suspicion that he was capable of sewing money up in his clothes. “He treats me not as an officer but as a thief,” Mitya muttered to himself. They communicated their ideas to one another with amazing frankness. The secretary, for instance, who was also behind the curtain, fussing about and listening, called Nikolay Parfenovitch’s attention to the cap, which they were also fingering. “You remember Gridyenko, the copying‐clerk,” observed the secretary. “Last summer he received the wages of the whole office, and pretended to have lost the money when he was drunk. And where was it found? Why, in just such pipings in his cap. The hundred‐rouble notes were screwed up in little rolls and sewed in the piping.” Both the lawyers remembered Gridyenko’s case perfectly, and so laid aside Mitya’s cap, and decided that all his clothes must be more thoroughly examined later. “Excuse me,” cried Nikolay Parfenovitch, suddenly, noticing that the right cuff of Mitya’s shirt was turned in, and covered with blood, “excuse me, what’s that, blood?” “Yes,” Mitya jerked out. “That is, what blood? ... and why is the cuff turned in?” Mitya told him how he had got the sleeve stained with blood looking after Grigory, and had turned it inside when he was washing his hands at Perhotin’s. “You must take off your shirt, too. That’s very important as material evidence.” Mitya flushed red and flew into a rage. “What, am I to stay naked?” he shouted. “Don’t disturb yourself. We will arrange something. And meanwhile take off your socks.” “You’re not joking? Is that really necessary?” Mitya’s eyes flashed. “We are in no mood for joking,” answered Nikolay Parfenovitch sternly. “Well, if I must—” muttered Mitya, and sitting down on the bed, he took off his socks. He felt unbearably awkward. All were clothed, while he was naked, and strange to say, when he was undressed he felt somehow guilty in their presence, and was almost ready to believe himself that he was inferior to them, and that now they had a perfect right to despise him. “When all are undressed, one is somehow not ashamed, but when one’s the only one undressed and everybody is looking, it’s degrading,” he kept repeating to himself, again and again. “It’s like a dream, I’ve sometimes dreamed of being in such degrading positions.” It was a misery to him to take off his socks. They were very dirty, and so were his underclothes, and now every one could see it. And what was worse, he disliked his feet. All his life he had thought both his big toes hideous. He particularly loathed the coarse, flat, crooked nail on the right one, and now they would all see it. Feeling intolerably ashamed made him, at once and intentionally, rougher. He pulled off his shirt, himself. “Would you like to look anywhere else if you’re not ashamed to?” “No, there’s no need to, at present.” “Well, am I to stay naked like this?” he added savagely. “Yes, that can’t be helped for the time.... Kindly sit down here for a while. You can wrap yourself in a quilt from the bed, and I ... I’ll see to all this.” All the things were shown to the witnesses. The report of the search was drawn up, and at last Nikolay Parfenovitch went out, and the clothes were carried out after him. Ippolit Kirillovitch went out, too. Mitya was left alone with the peasants, who stood in silence, never taking their eyes off him. Mitya wrapped himself up in the quilt. He felt cold. His bare feet stuck out, and he couldn’t pull the quilt over so as to cover them. Nikolay Parfenovitch seemed to be gone a long time, “an insufferable time.” “He thinks of me as a puppy,” thought Mitya, gnashing his teeth. “That rotten prosecutor has gone, too, contemptuous no doubt, it disgusts him to see me naked!” Mitya imagined, however, that his clothes would be examined and returned to him. But what was his indignation when Nikolay Parfenovitch came back with quite different clothes, brought in behind him by a peasant. “Here are clothes for you,” he observed airily, seeming well satisfied with the success of his mission. “Mr. Kalganov has kindly provided these for this unusual emergency, as well as a clean shirt. Luckily he had them all in his trunk. You can keep your own socks and underclothes.” Mitya flew into a passion. “I won’t have other people’s clothes!” he shouted menacingly, “give me my own!” “It’s impossible!” “Give me my own. Damn Kalganov and his clothes, too!” It was a long time before they could persuade him. But they succeeded somehow in quieting him down. They impressed upon him that his clothes, being stained with blood, must be “included with the other material evidence,” and that they “had not even the right to let him have them now ... taking into consideration the possible outcome of the case.” Mitya at last understood this. He subsided into gloomy silence and hurriedly dressed himself. He merely observed, as he put them on, that the clothes were much better than his old ones, and that he disliked “gaining by the change.” The coat was, besides, “ridiculously tight. Am I to be dressed up like a fool ... for your amusement?” They urged upon him again that he was exaggerating, that Kalganov was only a little taller, so that only the trousers might be a little too long. But the coat turned out to be really tight in the shoulders. “Damn it all! I can hardly button it,” Mitya grumbled. “Be so good as to tell Mr. Kalganov from me that I didn’t ask for his clothes, and it’s not my doing that they’ve dressed me up like a clown.” “He understands that, and is sorry ... I mean, not sorry to lend you his clothes, but sorry about all this business,” mumbled Nikolay Parfenovitch. “Confound his sorrow! Well, where now? Am I to go on sitting here?” He was asked to go back to the “other room.” Mitya went in, scowling with anger, and trying to avoid looking at any one. Dressed in another man’s clothes he felt himself disgraced, even in the eyes of the peasants, and of Trifon Borissovitch, whose face appeared, for some reason, in the doorway, and vanished immediately. “He’s come to look at me dressed up,” thought Mitya. He sat down on the same chair as before. He had an absurd nightmarish feeling, as though he were out of his mind. “Well, what now? Are you going to flog me? That’s all that’s left for you,” he said, clenching his teeth and addressing the prosecutor. He would not turn to Nikolay Parfenovitch, as though he disdained to speak to him. “He looked too closely at my socks, and turned them inside out on purpose to show every one how dirty they were—the scoundrel!” “Well, now we must proceed to the examination of witnesses,” observed Nikolay Parfenovitch, as though in reply to Mitya’s question. “Yes,” said the prosecutor thoughtfully, as though reflecting on something. “We’ve done what we could in your interest, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” Nikolay Parfenovitch went on, “but having received from you such an uncompromising refusal to explain to us the source from which you obtained the money found upon you, we are, at the present moment—” “What is the stone in your ring?” Mitya interrupted suddenly, as though awakening from a reverie. He pointed to one of the three large rings adorning Nikolay Parfenovitch’s right hand. “Ring?” repeated Nikolay Parfenovitch with surprise. “Yes, that one ... on your middle finger, with the little veins in it, what stone is that?” Mitya persisted, like a peevish child. “That’s a smoky topaz,” said Nikolay Parfenovitch, smiling. “Would you like to look at it? I’ll take it off ...” “No, don’t take it off,” cried Mitya furiously, suddenly waking up, and angry with himself. “Don’t take it off ... there’s no need.... Damn it!... Gentlemen, you’ve sullied my heart! Can you suppose that I would conceal it from you, if I had really killed my father, that I would shuffle, lie, and hide myself? No, that’s not like Dmitri Karamazov, that he couldn’t do, and if I were guilty, I swear I shouldn’t have waited for your coming, or for the sunrise as I meant at first, but should have killed myself before this, without waiting for the dawn! I know that about myself now. I couldn’t have learnt so much in twenty years as I’ve found out in this accursed night!... And should I have been like this on this night, and at this moment, sitting with you, could I have talked like this, could I have moved like this, could I have looked at you and at the world like this, if I had really been the murderer of my father, when the very thought of having accidentally killed Grigory gave me no peace all night—not from fear—oh, not simply from fear of your punishment! The disgrace of it! And you expect me to be open with such scoffers as you, who see nothing and believe in nothing, blind moles and scoffers, and to tell you another nasty thing I’ve done, another disgrace, even if that would save me from your accusation! No, better Siberia! The man who opened the door to my father and went in at that door, he killed him, he robbed him. Who was he? I’m racking my brains and can’t think who. But I can tell you it was not Dmitri Karamazov, and that’s all I can tell you, and that’s enough, enough, leave me alone.... Exile me, punish me, but don’t bother me any more. I’ll say no more. Call your witnesses!” Mitya uttered his sudden monologue as though he were determined to be absolutely silent for the future. The prosecutor watched him the whole time and only when he had ceased speaking, observed, as though it were the most ordinary thing, with the most frigid and composed air: “Oh, about the open door of which you spoke just now, we may as well inform you, by the way, now, of a very interesting piece of evidence of the greatest importance both to you and to us, that has been given us by Grigory, the old man you wounded. On his recovery, he clearly and emphatically stated, in reply to our questions, that when, on coming out to the steps, and hearing a noise in the garden, he made up his mind to go into it through the little gate which stood open, before he noticed you running, as you have told us already, in the dark from the open window where you saw your father, he, Grigory, glanced to the left, and, while noticing the open window, observed at the same time, much nearer to him, the door, standing wide open—that door which you have stated to have been shut the whole time you were in the garden. I will not conceal from you that Grigory himself confidently affirms and bears witness that you must have run from that door, though, of course, he did not see you do so with his own eyes, since he only noticed you first some distance away in the garden, running towards the fence.” Mitya had leapt up from his chair half‐way through this speech. “Nonsense!” he yelled, in a sudden frenzy, “it’s a barefaced lie. He couldn’t have seen the door open because it was shut. He’s lying!” “I consider it my duty to repeat that he is firm in his statement. He does not waver. He adheres to it. We’ve cross‐examined him several times.” “Precisely. I have cross‐examined him several times,” Nikolay Parfenovitch confirmed warmly. “It’s false, false! It’s either an attempt to slander me, or the hallucination of a madman,” Mitya still shouted. “He’s simply raving, from loss of blood, from the wound. He must have fancied it when he came to.... He’s raving.” “Yes, but he noticed the open door, not when he came to after his injuries, but before that, as soon as he went into the garden from the lodge.” “But it’s false, it’s false! It can’t be so! He’s slandering me from spite.... He couldn’t have seen it ... I didn’t come from the door,” gasped Mitya. The prosecutor turned to Nikolay Parfenovitch and said to him impressively: “Confront him with it.” “Do you recognize this object?” Nikolay Parfenovitch laid upon the table a large and thick official envelope, on which three seals still remained intact. The envelope was empty, and slit open at one end. Mitya stared at it with open eyes. “It ... it must be that envelope of my father’s, the envelope that contained the three thousand roubles ... and if there’s inscribed on it, allow me, ‘For my little chicken’ ... yes—three thousand!” he shouted, “do you see, three thousand, do you see?” “Of course, we see. But we didn’t find the money in it. It was empty, and lying on the floor by the bed, behind the screen.” For some seconds Mitya stood as though thunderstruck. “Gentlemen, it’s Smerdyakov!” he shouted suddenly, at the top of his voice. “It’s he who’s murdered him! He’s robbed him! No one else knew where the old man hid the envelope. It’s Smerdyakov, that’s clear, now!” “But you, too, knew of the envelope and that it was under the pillow.” “I never knew it. I’ve never seen it. This is the first time I’ve looked at it. I’d only heard of it from Smerdyakov.... He was the only one who knew where the old man kept it hidden, I didn’t know ...” Mitya was completely breathless. “But you told us yourself that the envelope was under your deceased father’s pillow. You especially stated that it was under the pillow, so you must have known it.” “We’ve got it written down,” confirmed Nikolay Parfenovitch. “Nonsense! It’s absurd! I’d no idea it was under the pillow. And perhaps it wasn’t under the pillow at all.... It was just a chance guess that it was under the pillow. What does Smerdyakov say? Have you asked him where it was? What does Smerdyakov say? that’s the chief point.... And I went out of my way to tell lies against myself.... I told you without thinking that it was under the pillow, and now you— Oh, you know how one says the wrong thing, without meaning it. No one knew but Smerdyakov, only Smerdyakov, and no one else.... He didn’t even tell me where it was! But it’s his doing, his doing; there’s no doubt about it, he murdered him, that’s as clear as daylight now,” Mitya exclaimed more and more frantically, repeating himself incoherently, and growing more and more exasperated and excited. “You must understand that, and arrest him at once.... He must have killed him while I was running away and while Grigory was unconscious, that’s clear now.... He gave the signal and father opened to him ... for no one but he knew the signal, and without the signal father would never have opened the door....” “But you’re again forgetting the circumstance,” the prosecutor observed, still speaking with the same restraint, though with a note of triumph, “that there was no need to give the signal if the door already stood open when you were there, while you were in the garden....” “The door, the door,” muttered Mitya, and he stared speechless at the prosecutor. He sank back helpless in his chair. All were silent. “Yes, the door!... It’s a nightmare! God is against me!” he exclaimed, staring before him in complete stupefaction. “Come, you see,” the prosecutor went on with dignity, “and you can judge for yourself, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. On the one hand we have the evidence of the open door from which you ran out, a fact which overwhelms you and us. On the other side your incomprehensible, persistent, and, so to speak, obdurate silence with regard to the source from which you obtained the money which was so suddenly seen in your hands, when only three hours earlier, on your own showing, you pledged your pistols for the sake of ten roubles! In view of all these facts, judge for yourself. What are we to believe, and what can we depend upon? And don’t accuse us of being ‘frigid, cynical, scoffing people,’ who are incapable of believing in the generous impulses of your heart.... Try to enter into our position ...” Mitya was indescribably agitated. He turned pale. “Very well!” he exclaimed suddenly. “I will tell you my secret. I’ll tell you where I got the money!... I’ll reveal my shame, that I may not have to blame myself or you hereafter.” “And believe me, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” put in Nikolay Parfenovitch, in a voice of almost pathetic delight, “that every sincere and complete confession on your part at this moment may, later on, have an immense influence in your favor, and may, indeed, moreover—” But the prosecutor gave him a slight shove under the table, and he checked himself in time. Mitya, it is true, had not heard him. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Fyodor Dostoyevsky (2009). The Brothers Karamazov. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/28054/pg28054-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

The Prosecutor Catches Mitya

Phoenix Wright is a great character who goes on an incredible journey during the first three games of the Ace Attorney series. However, no matter how great your protagonist is, there has to be an equally great antagonist to clash with them. Luckily, the Ace Attorney series has that in spades. Whether it’s Franziska von Karma or Godot, you know you’re in for a fight. Whenever you think you have them beat, they somehow turn it around on you. But above that, they all have stories that make them more than just courtroom rivals. So, here are the best Ace Attorney prosecutors from the original trilogy. By the way, there will definitely be spoilers in this article. Ace Attorney Prosecutors Ranked Winston Payne Franziska von Karma Miles Edgeworth Godot 1. Winston Payne Okay, I like Winston Payne but I think we all saw this coming. Compared to the rest of the prosecutors from the trilogy, Payne isn’t given too much to work with. He only appears about once per game. That said, he does leave a lasting impression. Payne appears as the prosecutor in the first case of all three games. He’s the prosecutor they use to ease new players into the series. The reason he works so well in this role is that he’s immensely arrogant. As soon as he opens his mouth you immediately want to beat him because of his comments and attitude. So, whenever you do win the case, the feeling of victory is amplified tenfold. 2. Franziska von Karma Introduced in the second game, Franziska von Karma immediately becomes a force to be reckoned with. She’s the daughter of notorious prosecutor Manfred von Karma, and like her father, she doesn’t accept anything less than perfection. Franziska is relatively young for a prosecutor but that hasn’t stopped her from making a name for herself. She’s vicious, intimidating, and outright scary. The only thing sharper than her words is the whip that she has with her at all times. However, there’s something about her that makes her sympathetic. As stated, she wants to be perfect, and she’s crushed when she can’t meet that high standard. In the end, von Karma doesn’t become friends with Phoenix Wright but there is a level of respect between the two. Franziska may not have been able to beat the defense attorney, but she has won over the hearts of the fans. 3. Miles Edgeworth Miles Edgeworth is a fan-favorite character, and for good reason. His relationship/rivalry with Phoenix Wright in the first game is a sight to behold. Seeing them go from former friends to rivals back to friends again is a journey many of us wish we could relive. Apart from Payne, Edgeworth is the only prosecutor to make an appearance in every game of the trilogy, and that’s still not enough Edgeworth for us. Although he can be reserved and sometimes emotionless, he’s shown to care about Wright and the rest of his friends. This is made evident when he springs up to help when Maya gets kidnapped in “Farewell, My Turnabout”. Again, he immediately helps in the last case of the trilogy when Wright is in the hospital and can’t investigate the crime or defend the defendant. Edgeworth might have a tough exterior shell, but deep down, he’s a big softy. 4. Godot The main prosecutor of the last game, Godot might just be the best Ace Attorney character. Everything about him is top-notch: his theme, his appearance, his dialogue, and especially, his story. Godot is mysterious and tragic, and he just oozes coolness. Although he’s a tough prosecutor, and he openly dislikes Wright, Godot makes it impossible to root against him. It becomes even more impossible when we learn of his backstory. Godot was the friend and co-worker of Mia Fey, the mentor of Wright. Unfortunately, he falls into a coma, and in the time that it takes for him to awaken, Mia is murdered. This takes him on a quest to face off against Mia’s pupil. Godot believes Wright is weak for not saving Mia from death. It takes him until the very end to see that she is still living inside of Wright. The other characters on this list are fantastic in their own right, but Godot is the best of the Ace Attorney prosecutors. More in Gaming: ROMUT: Why Less Is More When It Comes To Indie Games Build NFT Games "Play to Earn" With Unity in 2022 5 Things You Should Know Before Developing CTV Games

Ranking the Ace Attorney Prosecutors From the Original Trilogy

Something interesting caught my attention in Cory House’s Pluralsight course, Clean Coding Principles in C#. House makes a strong case between writing code and writing prose. As a writer myself, I’ve long seen the parallels between . However, House takes the analogy further, and draws many parallels between writing clean code and the writing you’d find in a book or article. writing and coding The analogy is a good one because it’s concrete and relatable: all of us read books and all of us write code. We know a book is well written when reading it is easy. That’s because: Chapters are organized. Headers give us specific information about the paragraphs that follow. Each paragraph contains one idea.Each character is developed. We can apply the same principles found in writing prose as in writing code. House shows us how. 1. Write variable names that clearly convey your intent, like names in a book. “Imagine reading a book with random, one-letter abbreviations throughout,” House suggests. Here’s an example: “P was very angry with G for insulting her M...He slept on the C.” Despite the bad names, House acknowledges, you can probably get the main idea of what’s going on. But you have to work at it. That’s an important point: the reader shouldn’t have to work at it. It’d be much clearer and easier to read something like this: “Pam was very angry with George for insulting her mom...He slept on the couch.” The abbreviations have been replaced with clear, meaningful names. The same principle is true when writing code. It’s clearer and easier to read a variable like instead of seeing a seemingly random letter, . “Understanding the programmer’s intent is the biggest problem,” House says. “So we must strive to be crystal clear about what we meant to do.” employee_total e Key point: Be intentional with your names. 2. “Functions are like paragraphs, for code.” In school, most of us learned the golden rule for writing paragraphs: one idea per paragraph. A similar rule applies when writing functions: each function has a single purpose. Key point: It’s easier to read and understand—both paragraphs and functions—that are clear, focused, and don’t do too much. 3. “Initialize variables just in time,” like characters in a book. You don’t get a list of characters up front when reading a book, House points out. Instead, you’re introduced to a new character “just in time.” For example, we get introduced to Bob when he enters the story. Otherwise we have to keep track of Bob, Alice, and a slew of other characters unnecessarily. As a reader, that’s burdensome. It makes reading confusing. It’s why authors don’t do this. The same is true when coding. If you initialize all of your variables at the top of your file, then the reader has a bunch of things to remember. That’s burdensome. It makes reading confusing. Don’t do this. “Instead, well-structured functions should....initialize variables just in time,” House says. “When the variable is needed, bring it to life.” Then, get the variable “out of scope.” That way, the reader no longer has to think about it. Key point: Give your readers what they need—when they need it. It’s been said that easy reading is hard writing. That’s true for writing both prose and code. Make it easy for your readers: write clear, meaningful code. Programmer and writer: amymhaddad.com | programmerspyramid.com | I tweet about programming, learning, and productivity @amymhaddad Originally published on amymhaddad.com .

3 Things Coding And Prose Writing Have In Common According To Cory House

The operator of YTS recently 'settled' a lawsuit that was filed by the US. movie company Wicked Nevada. Soon after, the same movie company joined other filmmakers to sue several users of the notorious torrent site. According to the complaint, the rightsholders know the email addresses that the defendants used to register with at YTS, as well as the VPN IP-address of one user. This raises some questions. Last week we reported that the operator of YTS, one of the most visited torrent sites, resolved a piracy lawsuit that was filed against it by movie outfit Wicked Nevada. , the YTS admin agreed to pay $150,000 in damages. In addition, he promised not to share torrents of the film “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, And Vile.” In a consent judgment What is most unusual about the agreement is that the torrent site itself remains operational. This means that, aside from the hefty damages award, YTS can continue its business as usual. However, that doesn’t mean that its users can’t be targeted. Soon after our coverage, we noticed that Wicked Nevada filed a new lawsuit together with several other movie companies including Dallas Buyers Club, Bodyguard Productions, and Rambo V Productions. This complaint is also related to YTS, but targets alleged users of the site over alleged copyright infringement. The movie companies list a group of Doe defendants and a Hawaiian man named Harry Beasor. According to the complaint, all defendants registered an account with the YTS website using their email address. In addition, their IP-addresses were linked to pirating films of the movie companies that filed the suit. While lawsuits against alleged BitTorrent pirates are not new, this complaint stands out and raises quite a few concerns. Apparently, the movie companies know the email addresses for some registered YTS users. Not only that, but they also know which torrents were downloaded from the site using the accounts and what IP-addresses were used, as the complaint makes clear. “Defendant Harry Beasor used the YTS website to download torrent files associated with Plaintiffs’ Works from Internet Protocol (‘IP’) address 91.207.175.82 associated with his VPN service,” it reads, specifically mentioning the movies London Has Fallen, Mechanic: Resurrection, and I Feel Pretty. “Defendant Harry Beasor used the IP address of the VPN service because he knew that he was copying the Works without a valid license and therefore in violation of Plaintiffs’ exclusive rights,” the complaint adds. The movie companies point out that YTS openly advertises the use of a VPN. According to the torrent site, it’s a good option for users to protect themselves from expensive lawsuits. TorrentFreak reached out to the attorney of the filmmakers, Kerry Culpepper, to find out how this private user information was obtained from the site. He informed us that, at this moment, he cannot comment on the matter in public. This leaves us with little more than speculation. A likely scenario is that the YTS operator gave up the user information as part of the negotiations. This would not be unprecedented, as the developer of the app CotoMovies with the film companies in the past. shared similar information We contacted YTS for a comment on this possibility, but at the time of writing, we have yet to hear back. What is clear is that the movie companies linked emails that were used to register with YTS to actual IP-addresses. All the Doe defendants are users of the ISP Spectrum, who the copyright holders hope to expose through a subpoena. Mr. Beasor used a VPN, which appears to have been Private Internet Access, but the rightsholders already have his name and no additional subpoena is requested. The complaint doesn’t make it clear how the movie companies tracked down the name of Mr. Beasor. The most likely scenario is that the email address gave this away, but we were unable to confirm this independently. While clear details are not available, the lawsuit shows that using a VPN is not very helpful if there are other leads that point to one’s identity. If someone uses an easily identifiable email which can be linked to a VPN address that was used with the same account, even the best VPN doesn’t protect one’s privacy. That said, the movie companies’ case is certainly no shoo-in. People who register an account with YTS don’t have to confirm their email address, so anyone can sign up with a random address, including those of other people. In addition, most VPN IP-addresses are used by dozens or hundreds of people at once, so it’s impossible to prove without a doubt that one person shared a single file at any given point in time. Especially since many VPN providers don’t keep logs that could help to identify a single user. That said, the fact that the movie companies are going after YTS users, claiming to have access to details that are only supposed to be available in the torrent site’s user database, is quite worrying, to say the least. A full copy of the complaint, filed by Fallen Productions, Inc., Criminal Productions, LHF Productions, Millennium Funding, Bodyguard Productions, Hunter Killer Productions, HB Productions, Rambo V Productions, TBV Productions, Colossal Movie Productions, Venice PI, Colossal Movie Productions, Headhunter, Dallas Buyers Club, Definition Delaware, and Wicked Nevada, obtained by TorrentFreak, is available here (pdf) Originally published as “ Movie Companies Sue YTS Users, Including One Who Hid Behind a VPN " with the Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC 3.0) license

US Movie Companies Prosecute YTS Users Plus The One With a VPN

For the first time in almost a decade, not a single person was charged with a file-sharing or streaming related crime in Sweden during 2019. The news comes from the Prosecutor's Office, which reveals that just 23 offenses were reported during the year, the lowest number since 2010. While there are many hundreds of pirate sites and hundreds of millions of pirates around the globe today, for many years it was Sweden that generated a disproportionate number of news headlines covering the phenomenon. With a population that had become exceptionally comfortable with file-sharing technologies and a general lack of enforcement, sites like The Pirate Bay flourished alongside significant numbers of private torrent sites, so-called Direct Connect hubs, and streaming sites. Eventually, however, legislation and law enforcement began to catch up, targeting sites both large and small, as well as individuals viewed as significant players by the entertainment industries. After reporting what felt like dozens of cases over the years, some involving torrent and streaming site operators, others involved with DCC sharing, the last couple of years felt strangely devoid of criminal prosecutions. With the mainstream entertainment companies appearing to focus more on , criminal legal cases dropped off the radar. ISP blocking processes Now, there is official confirmation from the authorities that for the first time since 2010, when a new criminal code was introduced, not a single person was criminally charged with a piracy-related offense during the whole of 2019. Information obtained by from the Prosecutor’s Office reveals that just 23 crimes were reported to the authorities last year, the lowest figure for nine years. SVT That revelation lies in stark contrast to the position in 2016, when Sweden’s national police announced that three-quarters of intellectual property complaints filed in the country related to file-sharing, with a new complaint being filed with authorities . every three days File-sharing and similar cases are currently handled by the but for a case to get underway, it must receive a referral from copyright holder groups and their representatives. National Unit against Organized Crime However, according to Rights Alliance, the most prominent anti-piracy group in Sweden, sizeable targets are now thin on the ground. “All Swedish illegal film services, whether streaming or file sharing via BitTorrent, are notified and under investigation. There will, of course, be new ones all the time, but every one of size is already registered,” Rights Alliance lawyer Sara Lindbäck told SVT. Of course, this doesn’t mean that file-sharing, web-streaming, IPTV and other forms of piracy have been defeated but there does seem to be a perception that local targets have either shut down or moved overseas, placing them outside Swedish jurisdiction. There’s also the matter of investigations that are already underway but haven’t yet got to the charging stage. “This type of case can take a long time as evidence is often found in another country and legal assistance is needed to get the information out,” says Brita Wallström, head of the police unit dealing with intellectual property crimes. While there may be a level of optimism at the lack of criminal prosecutions in 2019, the battleground against piracy appears to have shifted in Sweden. Pirated content is still readily accessible in the country, no matter who administers it or where it is being served from. As a result, there are now companies who, rather than attack the suppliers of that material, now prefer to go after regular Internet users in civil actions. As reported last week, there has of so-called copyright-trolling cases in Sweden during recent years. been an explosion Beginning around , in 2019 more than 60,000 IP addresses were targeted in civil actions, with around 144,000 IP-addresses targeted over the past three years. four years ago So, while anti-piracy groups and the authorities may be running out of higher-level pirate site operators to bring to trial in Sweden, there is currently no shortage of downloaders to pursue for cash settlements. The rest, who prefer to utilize streaming platforms and ever-popular IPTV services, will remain mostly under the radar – for now. Originally published as “ Zero Online Pirates Criminally Charged in 2019, Lowest Since 2010, Swedish Authorities Say ” with the Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC 3.0) license

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