It's not nothing but it's not a lot either.

Fair, it's still only ~2400m, so that wouldn't be particularly hard.

I spend a lot of time in the mountains, 1200ft/hour would be pretty poor in terms of altitude gain hiking. At 3000m if you're not acclimatised it's probably not far off.

Lol, I spend a fair amount of time in the mountains, I know from experience that on a reasonable trail (certainly worse than something resembling stairs) I'll average about 500m/hour altitude gain if I'm not pushing too hard, and I'm not by any means seriously fit (I have a largely titanium spine following a paragliding accident a couple of years back). A 1200ft ascent I could take my 70 year old dad up no problem.

Looking it up, it's at about 2400m, so a 1200ft/400m ascent at those altitudes should be easy for all but the most couch potato of redditors.

1200ft really isn't all that much height gain, should be under an hour for anyone reasonably fit? Or is there just way more to it than just stairs?

He's going to prison for the rest of his life anyway, might as well have a go.

How do they know he can't access keys to some stolen funds stashed somewhere? I would have thought anyone facing the rest of their life in prison with potential access to hundreds of millions of dollars is a flight risk regardless of conditions.