Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in prison for his role in defrauding users of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX.<\/p>\n
In a federal courtroom in lower Manhattan, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan called the defense argument misleading, logically flawed and speculative. <\/p>\n
He said Bankman-Fried had obstructed justice and tampered with witnesses in mounting his defense \u2014 something Kaplan said he weighed in his sentencing decision. <\/p>\n
Bankman-Fried, wearing a beige jailhouse jumpsuit, struck an apologetic tone, saying he had made a series of \u2018selfish\u2019 decisions while leading FTX and \u2018threw it all away.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018It haunts me every day,\u2019 he said in his statement. <\/p>\n
Prosecutors had sought as much as 50 years, while Bankman-Fried\u2019s legal team argued for no more than 6\u00bd years. He was convicted on seven criminal counts in November and had been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since.<\/p>\n
In a statement following Thursday\u2019s sentencing, Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Bankman-Fried had orchestrated one of the largest frauds in financial history.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s sentence will prevent the defendant from ever again committing fraud and is an important message to others who might be tempted to engage in financial crimes that justice will be swift, and the consequences will be severe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that there are \u201cserious consequences for defrauding customers and investors.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone who believes they can hide their financial crimes behind wealth and power, or behind a shiny new thing they claim no one else is smart enough to understand, should think twice,\u2019 he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bankman-Fried plans to appeal both the conviction and the sentence. A spokesperson for his parents said in a statement on their behalf: \u201cWe are heartbroken and will continue to fight for our son.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bankman-Fried\u2019s lawyers had pleaded for leniency, citing what they described as mental health struggles and his purported generosity in his personal life. They also argued that FTX users had not ultimately suffered substantial losses \u2014\u00a0something current FTX administrator John Ray said was false in a letter to Kaplan in advance of Thursday\u2019s sentencing.<\/p>\n
But prosecutors argued the brazenness of the crime, the extent of the victims\u2019 losses and damages and Bankman-Fried\u2019s evident lack of remorse meant a harsher sentence was warranted.<\/p>\n
Late Tuesday, prosecutors filed documents from victims testifying about how Bankman-Fried\u2019s actions had harmed them.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy whole life has been destroyed,\u201d wrote one, whose name was redacted, in a letter dated March 15. \u201cI have 2 young children, one born right before the collapse. I still remember the weeks following where I would stare blankly into their eyes, completely empty inside knowing their futures have been stolen through no fault of our own. I did not gamble on crypto. I did not make any crypto gains. I had my [bitcoin] which I had collected over years deposited on FTX as a custodian. I did not agree to the risk that SBF took with my funds.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The man added he was suffering from depression and that his wife had become suicidal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know we can never make that kind of money back ever again,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
Another person wrote about how the loss of funds had affected numerous life plans, including a wedding.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach passing day is a painful reminder of the opportunities stolen from me, compounding feelings of hopelessness and despair,\u2019 the person wrote. \u2018The burden of financial ruin weighs heavily on my shoulders, leading me to grapple with constant thoughts of suicide and significantly impairing my ability to perform at work.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the recent annals of white-collar crime, Bankman-Fried\u2019s sentence is similar to what others found guilty have received. Former WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers received 25 years. Former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling received 24 years. <\/strong><\/p>\n Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes received about 11 years. Bernie Madoff received 150 years and died in prison at age 82. <\/strong><\/p>\n FTX was once valued at more than $30 billion, with Bankman-Fried\u2019s net worth estimated at more than $20 billion. FTX collapsed in November 2022 after it was revealed that it had a major cash shortfall. <\/p>\n At his trial, prosecutors said Bankman-Fried robbed FTX customers of as much as $8 billion to fund a vast array of outside interests, including political initiatives, speculative investments and funding of FTX executives\u2019 lifestyles. <\/p>\n Three other FTX executives testified against him.<\/p>\n Bankman-Fried \u201cdidn\u2019t bargain for his three loyal deputies taking that stand and telling you the truth: that he was the one with the plan, the motive and the greed to raid FTX customer deposits \u2014 billions and billions of dollars \u2014 to give himself money, power, influence. He thought the rules did not apply to him. He thought that he could get away with it,\u201d Assistant U.S. Attorney\u00a0Danielle Sassoon told the jury. <\/p>\n Bankman-Fried\u2019s defense argued that he was merely borrowing the funds to run his Alameda Research investment group, which he believed was allowed, and that he was unaware of how much debt he had racked up.<\/p>\n He said he \u201cmade a number of small mistakes and a number of larger mistakes.\u2019 <\/p>\n Yet many experts agreed Bankman-Fried came across as an unsympathetic figure. Paul Tuchmann, a former federal prosecutor who is now a partner with Wiggin and Dana LLP, told CNBC that Bankman-Fried\u2019s testimony had been \u2018unpersuasive\u2019 and noted it took the jury only three hours to convict him on each count. <\/p>\n Trial attorney James Koutoulas said in an CNBC interview, \u201cNo one had a shred of support for SBF, nor should they have.\u201d <\/p>\n The U.S. Bureau of Prisons will consider which federal penitentiary to send him to. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in prison for his role in defrauding users of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX. In a federal courtroom in lower Manhattan, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan called the defense argument misleading, logically flawed and speculative. He said Bankman-Fried had obstructed justice and tampered with witnesses in mounting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2568,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}