A US judge has sentenced disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison after the former crypto tycoon was convicted of fraud charges last year.
District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan also sentenced Bankman-Fried to three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay $11 billion in forfeiture.
FTX imploded and filed for bankruptcy in November 2022 amid accusations that Bankman-Fried mishandled the exchange’s funds by loaning out billions of dollars worth of customer deposits to Alameda Research, the firm’s trading arm.
The exchange’s multi-billion dollar collapse led to a sharp downtick in crypto prices, and US federal authorities arrested Bankman-Fried the following month.
Last November, a US jury found the former FTX chief executive guilty of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud against FTX’s customers; wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud against Alameda’s lenders; conspiracy to commit securities fraud against FTX’s investors; conspiracy to commit commodities fraud against FTX’s customers; and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The jury only deliberated for four hours before reaching a verdict.
Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, says Bankman-Fried stole more than $8 billion worth of his customers’ money and committed one of the largest financial frauds in history.
“His deliberate and ongoing lies demonstrated a brazen disregard for customers’ expectations and disrespect for the rule of law, all so that he could secretly use his customers’ money to expand his own power and influence. The scale of his crimes is measured not just by the amount of money that was stolen, but by the extraordinary harm caused to victims, who in some cases had their life savings wiped out overnight.”
Bankman-Fried plans to appeal his sentence, the Guardian reports.
Thanks to soaring crypto prices and a lucrative investment in an artificial intelligence company, FTX’s bankruptcy estate is reportedly primed to pay its former customers 120-140% of the value of their holdings on the day the company filed for bankruptcy.
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