First, you are comparing wildly different cases. Fidel Salinas was accused of an attempt at a nonremunerative crime. The defendant in this thread is accused of very successfully and indiscriminately defrauding millions upon millions of people.
Second: as always, the media refuses to report on the real sentencing structure used in these cases, and instead negligently repeats the fallacy that like charges in felony cases are served consecutively, which is not the case. Ken White at Popehat --- a former prosecutor and no friend to the prosecutorial status quo in the US --- explained this brilliantly here:
A conviction on all forty-four of the felony charges Salinas faced might still not have produced a custodial sentence, depending on the accelerators applied during sentence. First time offender? Minimal damage? No profit motive? Probation is a possibility. The sentencing guidelines are a Google search away, FWIW.
Once again, you haven't actually presented an argument for how plea deals have harmed the process of justice in this case.
Second: as always, the media refuses to report on the real sentencing structure used in these cases, and instead negligently repeats the fallacy that like charges in felony cases are served consecutively, which is not the case. Ken White at Popehat --- a former prosecutor and no friend to the prosecutorial status quo in the US --- explained this brilliantly here:
https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentenc...
A conviction on all forty-four of the felony charges Salinas faced might still not have produced a custodial sentence, depending on the accelerators applied during sentence. First time offender? Minimal damage? No profit motive? Probation is a possibility. The sentencing guidelines are a Google search away, FWIW.
Once again, you haven't actually presented an argument for how plea deals have harmed the process of justice in this case.