Federal prosecutors requested a New York choose on Friday to condemn FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried to between 40 and 50 years in jail for cryptocurrency crimes they described as a “historic fraud.”
Prosecutors made the request as they submitted their presentence suggestions to a federal choose who will sentence the person who at one time dazzled the cryptocurrency world together with his promotional expertise, together with his entry to well-known folks prepared to advertise his companies.
Bankman-Fried, 32, is scheduled to be sentenced in Manhattan federal court docket on March 28 following his November conviction on fraud and conspiracy fees.
Prosecutors say he price prospects and traders in FTX and its associated corporations at the very least $10 billion from 2017 by 2022.
He was extradited to the US in December 2022 from the Bahamas after his corporations collapsed a month earlier. Initially permitted to stay at dwelling together with his mother and father in Palo Alto, California, he was jailed final yr weeks earlier than his trial after Decide Lewis A. Kaplan concluded that he had tried to tamper with trial witnesses.
Of their presentence submission, prosecutors described Bankman-Fried’s crimes as “one of many largest monetary frauds in historical past, and what’s seemingly the biggest fraud within the final decade.”
Seth Wenig / AP
“The defendant victimized tens of 1000’s of individuals and firms, throughout a number of continents, over a interval of a number of years. He stole cash from prospects who entrusted it to him; he lied to traders; he despatched fabricated paperwork to lenders; he pumped tens of millions of {dollars} in unlawful donations into our political system; and he bribed international officers. Every of those crimes is worthy of a prolonged sentence,” they wrote.
Prosecutors invoke Bankman-Fried’s political donations, bribes
They mentioned his “illegal political donations to over 300 politicians and political motion teams, amounting to in extra of $100 million, is believed to be the largest-ever marketing campaign finance offense.”
They usually mentioned his $150 million in bribes to Chinese language authorities officers was one of many single largest by a person.
“Even following FTX’s chapter and his subsequent arrest, Bankman-Fried shirked accountability, deflected blame to market occasions and different people, tried to tamper with witnesses, and lied repeatedly beneath oath,” prosecutors mentioned, citing his testimony at trial.
FTX’s chapter in November of 2022 forged a cloud over the whole crypto trade, because the sudden collapse of different main trade gamers vaporized billions in shopper wealth.
“So many individuals believed in him, he was a genius,” Natalie Tien, a former FTX worker, informed CBS Information final yr.
Tien mentioned attending the trial of her former boss was cathartic after experiencing months of confusion and despair when his empire collapsed and she or he too “misplaced some huge cash.”
Bankman-Fried’s legal professionals attacked earlier sentence suggestion
Two weeks in the past, Bankman-Fried’s legal professionals attacked a probation workplace suggestion that their shopper serve 100 years in jail, saying a sentence of that size could be “grotesque” and “barbaric.”
They urged the choose to condemn Bankman-Fried to only a few years behind bars after calculating federal sentencing tips to suggest a time period of 5 to six 1/2 years in jail.
They cited their shopper’s medical circumstances, which embrace autism, in addition to his objectives to enhance the world by his now-defunct crypto change, in accordance to the Wall Avenue Journal.
“Sam is just not the ‘evil genius’ depicted within the media or the grasping villain described at trial,” his legal professionals wrote. “Sam is a 31-year-old, first-time, nonviolent offender, who was joined within the conduct at situation by at the very least 4 different culpable people, in a matter the place victims are poised to get better —had been all the time poised to get better— 100 cents on the greenback.”
