The founder of the collapsed crypto exchange will spend the coming decades behind bars. In the multibillion-dollar fraud trial once morest Sam Bankman-Fried, Judge Lewis Kaplan set the sentence at 25 years on Thursday following a jury found the 32-year-old guilty in November.
The jury found it proven that Bankman-Fried, known for his appearances in jeans and a T-shirt and for his distinctive mop of hair, had embezzled eight billion dollars in customer money out of pure greed in order to speculate and finance his lavish lifestyle. Although he admitted errors in the process, he rejected the accusation of fraud several times.
After rumors of irregularities and a failed rescue by arch-rival Binance, investors withdrew money from FTX on a large scale at the end of 2022. The crypto exchange then filed for bankruptcy protection on November 11th.
“A life marked by greed”
The public prosecutor’s office had called for a prison sentence of 40 to 50 years. “His life over the past few years has been characterized by incomparable greed and hubris, by ambition and self-justification, by taking risks and repeatedly playing with other people’s money,” she wrote in explanation.
Bankman-Fried’s defense lawyers, on the other hand, had pleaded for a good five to six and a half years in prison. Your client is by no means the “super villain” described by the prosecution. The required prison sentence is “medieval.” They also pointed out that FTX customers received a large portion of their money back. Judge Kaplan did not accept this argument. “A thief who brings his loot to Las Vegas and successfully bets with the stolen money is not entitled to any relief from his sentence by using his Las Vegas winnings to repay the stolen money.”
In a statement, Bankman-Fried apologized to his former employees. “I’m sorry for what happened. There were things I should have done and said and things I shouldn’t have.” Some of his former associates had pleaded guilty and incriminated Bankman-Fried in his fraud trial.
He had also announced that he would appeal once morest the verdict and the amount of the sentence. In addition to Bankman-Fried, his parents, university professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, were present at Thursday’s hearing.
