Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison for FTX Fraud

Sam Bankman-Fried is expected to appeal his conviction. (document)

Disgraced cryptocurrency prodigy Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday after being convicted in one of the largest financial fraud cases in history.

U.S. prosecutors sought a sentence of 40 to 50 years in prison last November after a five-week trial by a New York jury against Sam Bankman-Fried, known by his initials SBF.

During the hearing, Sam Bankman-Fried told the court he was “sorry for what happened at every stage. There were things I should have done and there were things I shouldn’t have done.”

The final sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who used the hearing to scrutinize the financial crimes committed by Sam Bankman-Fried.

Sentencing has now been completed and Sam Bankman-Fried is expected to appeal against his conviction.

A New York jury found Sam Bankman-Fried guilty after a lengthy trial in his fiasco in November.

The government says the seven counts against Sam Bankman-Fried reflect the defendant’s “unparalleled greed and arrogance,” and the government’s sentencing request advocates a huge sentence in light of an estimated $10 billion-plus fraud imprisonment.

Additionally, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams argued that a lengthy prison sentence was necessary to “protect the public,” describing Sam Bankman-Fried as A “skilled” political opinion expert is capable of committing even more malfeasance.

Lawyers for Sam Bankman-Fried called the government’s proposed sentence “barbaric” and described their client as a hard-working young man motivated by philanthropy who had fallen on hard times.

Their descriptions were similar to the defense SBF presented at the trial – which was quickly rejected by jurors after just five hours of deliberation.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s lawyers had asked for a six-year prison sentence, with lawyers led by Mark Mukasey saying the sentence would “allow Sam to return quickly to a productive role in society”.

FTX implodes

Sam Bankman-Fried, an MIT graduate who became a billionaire before the age of 30, conquered the cryptocurrency world at breakneck speed, turning the small startup he co-founded in 2019, FTX, into the world’s second-largest exchange platform.

But in November 2022, the FTX empire collapsed, unable to cope with massive withdrawal requests from customers, who were horrified to learn that some of the funds stored by the company had been used for high-risk Sam Bankman-Fried’s personal hedge fund Alameda Research operate.

During the trial, some of Sam Bankman-Fried’s closest associates said he was key to all the decisions that led to FTX losing $8 billion.

The group includes former Alameda CEO and Sam Bankman-Fried’s on-again, off-again girlfriend Caroline Ellison, who testified that Alameda stole “approximately $14 billion” from FTX clients and that Bankman-Fried “directed me to commit these crimes “”.

Prosecution and defense documents cast very different views of Sam Bankman-Fried, the son of two respected Stanford law professors, Tony.

Williams said the “lack of remorse is embarrassing” and he questioned the “selfless” and “altruistic” image promoted by the defense of Sam Bankman-Fried, noting that he directed funds to “Luxury” real estate, donations and brushes with political leaders, Super Bowl TV ads and “access to celebrities.”

The defense statement said Sam Bankman-Fried felt “extremely remorseful” for the FTX debacle.

recover funds

Lawyers for Sam Bankman-Fried also pointed to statements by FTX’s current leaders expressing confidence that FTX customers and creditors will recover their funds, saying in the brief that there will be “zero harm to customers, lenders and investors.”

The argument prompted a scathing response from FTX Trading CEO John Ray, who said continued recovery of ill-gotten gains did not compensate for the fraud.

“The fact that the items he stole… were successfully recovered through professional efforts does not mean that they were not stolen,” Wray said in a letter to the court.

“That means we recovered some of them.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)