But a lighter sentence could, for example, range from no jail time to rates of less than 100 percent of the expected sentence in the case of non-cooperation. The prosecutor's recommendation of no jail time is frankly disappointing. She may not have been the main offender, but she committed the crimes.
What would her sentence have been if she did not cooperate (and suppose other did or there was enough evidence anyway)? Fifteen+ years? Two years is not a picnic, but given the alternative, it looks like it is.
The prosecutor didn't recommend no jail time. Ellison's lawyers did.
Also, in addition to jail time, she's going to owe a huge sum of money. The feds are going to have a claim on any money she makes for the rest of her life.
For better or worse (I think a little of both), long max sentences exist in the US criminal justice system to allow rewarding cooperators and to threaten non-cooperators alike.
According to the article I read (CNBC),
"The prison term was significantly stiffer than the recommendation by the federal Probation Department that Judge Lewis Kaplan sentence Ellison, who had run the hedge fund Alameda Research, to three years of supervised release, with no time at all behind bars".
In the same article, "Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon urged Kaplan for leniency".
It seems to me, as prosecutors and Probation Dept talk to each other, that all, except Kaplan, agreed on no prison time for Ellison.
You suspect well, I do not.
Let me ask you another question for which you and I do not know the answer. Since she got 2 years in prison, she was not promised (i.e. she did not sign any binding agreement with the prosecutor, beyond "we will do our best to get you a lenient sentence") not to go to prison. Why then not a sentence of 5, 10, 15 years in prison?
I did not say or believe that the prosecutor lied or they should renege on their word, far from it. I said that if she got two years, it means that the agreement Ellison-DA was not for no prison time in exchange for cooperation.
Thus I asked why two years and not five or ten of whatever time under the expected sentence time in case of no cooperation.
The prosecutor doesn't pick a time, and cant promise it. The judge selects the sentence. This judge thought 2 years was reasonable after the fact, and was not bound to it.