Reporting from insider tells us that rich defendants spend millions of dollars to
turn their luxury homes into jails to serve out their very tough sentences.
And let's just get into another example of this from insider.
Until former technology CEO Michael Lynch is tried over allegations
that he had a role in a multi billion dollar fraud scheme,
a house in the Posh Pacific Heights neighborhood that was recently listed for
rent at $22,000 a month is his, quote, cage.
He's one of about a dozen to benefit from an interpretation of federal law
that lets rich defendants, in essence, be their own jailers.
Now, at least 13 people have been released on conditions similar to Lynch,
and their charges are just about what you might suspect from insider.
The charges for the 13 rich defendants are lying to banks,
paying bribes, scamming investors out of billions of dollars, and
then the last one is one you might not expect slavery.
You read that right, slavery.
And judges say they can't do anything about this or really can't do anything
about it because they say the law gives them little choice but
to release these defendants pending trial, and this is a statement from one judge.
There are many defendants who are too poor to afford even the most modest of bail
bonds or financial conditions of release.
This is a serious flaw in our system, but
is not a reason to deny a constitutional right to someone who,
for whatever reason, can provide reasonable assurances against flight.
I mean, reading this I think it's so absurd because I live in Illinois.
We recently passed monumental bail reform that outlined specific crimes that
you're not allowed to impose cash bail on, and then violent crimes, they
can't post bail and get out of jail but nonviolent offense is there to everyone.
You don't have to put out any certain amount of money to get out.
And it really is just [LAUGH] pay for your freedom.
And it doesn't matter how bad the crime was.
I mean, slavery was on there.
But if you're rich enough to pay the penalty for committing [LAUGH] slavery,
it's cool.
You could just chill out in a $22,000 rental until your trial happens.
>> Speaker 2: So I read all these cases of rich folks being allowed to stay in their
mansions, and I was surprised to find out in some of them,
they actually do enforce it.
Yes, they hire their own private security and I thought, that's a funny joke, right?
But at one time, a security guard actually turned in a guy trying to leave the house.
I was whoa, that's interesting.
They're not allowed to have Internet, so some of them go a little bit stir crazy.
And I thought, well, maybe it's honest.
Then you get to, of course, the things that we expected.
No, for a lot [LAUGH] of them, they hire the security guard.
Remember, they're charged with paying bribes.
So what do they do?
They bribe the security guard [LAUGH].
Besides which, the guy works for him, right?
So this thing's a joke.
And so, yeah, there's this one guy, Fat Leonard, which imused me to no one.
Gee, I wonder if he did it.
He's got a mafia nickname.
Anyway, so Fat Leonard escaped conveniently.
He had hired a criminal or somebody with a criminal record to be a security guard.
[LAUGH] Apparently, he's legendary for bribes.
He would bribe people with money, sex, and
the article described it as Spanish succulent pigs.
Who bribes people with pigs?
Okay, against Matt Leonard.
[LAUGH] And so that guy's in the wind, he's gone, he's in Venezuela, and
we're probably never gonna get him back.
So this whole thing is pretty much a joke.
>> Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, if you got the money and you got enough power and
influence to bribe people off,
you're going to get your way, at least for a little bit.
But now at the end of the day, people like Sam Banksman Freed the reason why he went
down is cuz he ripped off rich people.
That's really why he went down.
And it's always interesting to know if you would have just been a little less greedy,
you could have gotten away with it either longer or forever.
You know what I mean?
If you wouldn't have just completely blown everything,
you could have gotten away with it for longer.
But that's ultimately what happens when you rip off rich people,
is you're gonna go down.
But this isn't surprising at all whatsoever.
>> Speaker 2: Last two things real quick here.
So Sam Banksman Freed might not run cuz he's bailed $250 million and
I don't think the brother has a lot of money left after [LAUGH] FDX went down.
So that one at least he's got some incentive to not run.
But honestly, it was Edwin who's part of the crew here that made this point,
Pablo Escobar also built his own jail, [LAUGH] okay?
So we're literally letting our white collar criminals act like
Pablo Escobar now.
>> Speaker 3: Why?
Why not?
They keep the bank rolling in Banksman Freed, keep that bank coming in,
you know what I'm saying?
So why not?