Hi, my name is Sonny Vleisides

[jwzguy]

Thanks for posting your side. It's a little light on details in some places (which a few others have asked for - whether you answer or not is up to you) but I would give you the benefit of the doubt. The government does indeed get pretty pissed any time they get cut out of the action.

One thing I would like to know is what your job at BFL entails...merely because I'm curious.

I see plenty of people on my ignore list have replied as well - I'm sure everything they said was constructive and unbiased. 

[fizzisist]

Yes..  really.  This is no joke.  It's called the federal sentencing guidelines implemented in 1984.  It's the point system that determines the sentence, not the judge.  My points totaled 43.  Life in prison.  Look it up and prepare to be amazed.

It's not a matter of it being a joke, it's a matter of it being a lie that's under consideration. I am looking it up, I still fail to see how a first conviction for fraud amounts to life without parole. Again, this is no place to be vague, you are the convicted felon, not us. Do your homework, don't expect us to do it for you.

Ok, I did part of the homework on the points. Assuming $19 million stolen, and some other facts about the case, I get between 41 and 45 points, so just about right. 43 points or higher gives a guideline sentence of life (per this table).  I don't see where it says the judge has no say in the sentence, and must do exactly what the table says. Of course, IANAL, I'm a fizzisist.

That said, life in prison seems about fitting for the crime he was charged with. NOT for the crime he claims he was both guilty of and convicted for in this post.

[repentance]

Especially when he can make a crapload of money by just running his business as he has been doing.

TL'DR  It makes absolutely no sense to assume this is a scam.

Just because a business is taking in a crapload of money doesn't mean that it's profitable.  We have no idea what financial obligations BFL has, so you can't assume that they're making a ton of money based on the amount they've collected for pre-orders.  Most new businesses don't become profitable for a number of years.

The non-disclosure about Sonny's past wasn't an oversight.  BFL knew damned well that people would be less likely to place pre-orders with the company if they knew of Sonny's past transgressions.  So the question of whether there's anything else they're hiding now arises and it's a legitimate one.

Maybe they're legitimate and maybe they're not, but the onus is now firmly on them to provide proof of their legitimacy and especially to back up their previous statement that pre-orders are not being used to fund ASIC development.  If there's any way in which BFL customers have been misled (and it appears that they have been regarding quality control), now is the time to come clean.  People will forgive any past deceptions if the whole truth is revealed now and BFL delivers their product up to standard and on time.  They'll be far less forgiving if the product doesn't live up to expectations and it's later revealed that the company's responses to user questions were either misleading or outright untrue.

[Chong Ciao]

he would be an idiot to run off with your money with after already having spent 2 years in jail, a criminal record and with his name out in the open.

That might make sense in the real world... but bitcoin.

(pirate's stolen over 5 million USD, and I don't forsee any jail in his future considering there's not even a police report right now)

Last time I checked, Pirate didnt have a registered company, didnt accept credit cards, didnt have a parole officer looking over his shoulder,  nor have I seen any shred of evidence of any real business activity. Even if there were, there would be no sensible explanation for why he would borrow at >3000% APR.  Pirate and BFL have nothing in common.

If you want to shout down scams on this forum, there are plenty to chose from, this isnt one.

Vescudero ?

[greyhawk]

Vescudero ?

Vescudero is down already. All of the HYIPs are.

[P!nk4sand]

you have lived in Indonesia which is my country

[Chong Ciao]

Vescudero ?

Vescudero is down already. All of the HYIPs are.

Put your money where your mouth is :     

http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=671

[Chong Ciao]

Not that it seems off topic...
any bets for sunny Sonny and BFL is a scam and won´t deliver anything useful when december comes?

[MrTeal]

Not that it seems off topic...
any bets for sunny Sonny and BFL is a scam and won´t deliver anything useful when december comes?

You could use the one in my sig.
http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=446

[somenick]

I'm satisfied.

I'm not.

Please elucidate your connection to Laissez Faire City, James Orlin Grabbe and the KGB.

and Putin )

this is joke 

[MPOE-PR]

Assuming $19 million stolen, and some other facts about the case

I didn't realise the guy walked off with $20,000,000 of other people's money. This'd be a little bit of detail that'd be germane to our entire discussion wouldn't you think.

[greyhawk]

I'm satisfied.

I'm not.

Please elucidate your connection to Laissez Faire City, James Orlin Grabbe and the KGB.

and Putin )

this is joke 

My question wasn't.

[somenick]

I'm satisfied.

I'm not.

Please elucidate your connection to Laissez Faire City, James Orlin Grabbe and the KGB.

and Putin )

this is joke 

My question wasn't.

no problem )

[Chong Ciao]

Not that it seems off topic...
any bets for sunny Sonny and BFL is a scam and won´t deliver anything useful when december comes?

You could use the one in my sig.
http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=446

i could give you a picture of it right now  and the bet would be lost?
without some proven superutility this bet is superfutility

[MrTeal]

Not that it seems off topic...
any bets for sunny Sonny and BFL is a scam and won´t deliver anything useful when december comes?

You could use the one in my sig.
http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=446

i could give you a picture of it right now  and the bet would be lost?
without some proven superutility this bet is superfutility

No one said the picture evidence would solely be a picture of the device.

[fizzisist]

Assuming $19 million stolen, and some other facts about the case

I didn't realise the guy walked off with $20,000,000 of other people's money. This'd be a little bit of detail that'd be germane to our entire discussion wouldn't you think.

Yeah, that came from the affidavit, paragraph 5.

[crazyates]

I havent "been had" yet.  A dying breed in bitcoin land.
Common sense goes a long way.  It doesnt take genius to tell 5% per week "investment opportunities" are ponzi's, nor does it take a lot of faith to see BFL is actually producing state of the art products, making a shitload of money legitimately. There is also nothing unbelievable about them being able to produce asics, there are now 4 other companies claiming the same capability in roughly the same time frame and they all have far less resources and far less proven trackrecord.

Is it possible Sonny is running another con? Sure, but he would be an idiot to run off with your money with after already having spent 2 years in jail, a criminal record and with his name out in the open. Especially when he can make a crapload of money by just running his business as he has been doing.

TL'DR  It makes absolutely no sense to assume this is a scam.

OMG!!   A well thought out, reasonable post! Quoted for future proof.

[Chong Ciao]

Not that it seems off topic...
any bets for sunny Sonny and BFL is a scam and won´t deliver anything useful when december comes?

You could use the one in my sig.
http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=446

i could give you a picture of it right now  and the bet would be lost?
without some proven superutility this bet is superfutility

No one said the picture evidence would solely be a picture of the device.

but of Sonnys wife doing some naked swimming when the tide goes out in Thaiti?

[thebaron]

Let's go easy on the witch hunting. Even though the Pirate thing is fresh on our minds, and BFL is kind of a sketchy company...even if this guy involved did actually intentionally defraud people in his past, they *are* delivering products at this time.

Do you not forget the following earn model wich we saw in the past.

1) Start a company
2) Get known
3) Get trusted (by delivering some kind of service or product)
4) Get money

5) Claim that you have been hacked or come up with some bad excuse.
6) Profit

BFL now is at phase 4 since they have the money.
So we will see now how this story plays out.

Oh, I've said something similar here already. Can't disagree one bit. I wouldn't give Bitcoins for an unreleased product...

[Zara]

I'm surprised no one has asked for his birth certificate to be posted. I know I'd feel a lot better about the company if we saw his birth record.

Seriously, the man shows incredible transparency here and some of you are grasping at straws to keep on bitching. Would this forum cease to exist if it was a discussion of ideas rather than a place to make up stories out of your head?