I admit that I have not heard of Shrem before, but I feel sorry for this guy who has obviously done nothing wrong but to exercise honest tradesmanship by selling BTC for USD at mutually agreed conditions.
Actually, BitInstant was dodgy from the word go, advertising "instant" Bitcoin transactions that often took days in practice. It went belly-up after its business model failed. I don't have any love lost for that particular service. I wouldn't say they'd qualify as a scam and, in fact, the other exchanges have similar problems. It seems they were pushing through Silk Road transactions with the added vig ahead of non-lawbreaking users.
If he had been defrauding bitcoin owners for the same dollar amount, he would be in much less trouble. US (justice) system is deeply sick.
Sadly true. Look at what happened to pirateat40. Oh, yeah. Nothing. There's a civil suit by the SEC, which means the worst he'd have to do is return the money he stole and pay a fine. Anyone who had run a Ponzi scam of this size denominated in dollars would be looking at hard time and would probably now be awaiting trial from behind bars or, if bailed out, the bail would be enormous.