Prosecutors Say Sam Bankman-Fried Ought to Get 40 to 50 Years in Jail
Federal prosecutors stated on Friday that Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced cryptocurrency mogul, ought to obtain a jail sentence of 40 to 50 years for his conviction on fraud fees.
The prosecutors outlined the sentencing advice in a submitting in U.S. District Court docket in Manhattan. Mr. Bankman-Fried’s sentencing listening to is scheduled for March 28, throughout which Choose Lewis A. Kaplan will determine his destiny. He faces a most attainable penalty of 110 years.
“Justice requires that he obtain a jail sentence commensurate with the extraordinary dimensions of his crimes,” the prosecutors stated in a 116-page sentencing memo to the decide.
In a separate submitting final month, legal professionals for Mr. Bankman-Fried, 32, argued that he ought to obtain a sentence of not more than six and a half years.
A spokesman for Mr. Bankman-Fried declined to remark.
Simply 18 months in the past, Mr. Bankman-Fried was a high-flying crypto mogul, presiding over the cryptocurrency trade FTX, a $40 billion enterprise empire. However then FTX collapsed virtually in a single day, placing him within the cross hairs of legislation enforcement.
In November, a federal jury in Manhattan convicted Mr. Bankman-Fried of stealing $8 billion from FTX’s clients to finance political contributions, investments in different firms and lavish real-estate purchases.
FTX’s implosion and Mr. Bankman-Fried’s subsequent arrest and conviction had been seen as a historic nadir for the loosely regulated crypto world.
“The crypto trade could be new,” Damian Williams, the U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of New York, stated after the decision, “however this sort of fraud, this sort of corruption, is as previous as time.”
Since then, the crypto trade seems to have put Mr. Bankman-Fried’s crimes within the rearview mirror. As he prepares for his sentencing, the costs of most digital belongings have soared, with Bitcoin reaching a file excessive this month.
Mr. Bankman-Fried may face what would quantity to life in jail. In line with courtroom data, a probation officer really helpful a 100-year sentence, simply 10 years lower than the utmost. Within the submitting final month, Mr. Bankman-Fried’s legal professionals referred to as that advice “barbaric” and “grotesque.”
Marc Mukasey, the lawyer Mr. Bankman-Fried employed to organize for the sentencing, argued in his authorized submitting {that a} 100-year sentence can be paying homage to the 150 years given to Bernard Madoff, who pleaded responsible in 2009 to operating one of many largest Ponzi schemes in historical past. Any comparisons between the 2 males are inappropriate, Mr. Mukasey stated, given “the length and {dollars}” concerned in Mr. Madoff’s crimes — a 20-year-long fraud that generated $64 billion in paper losses.
Mr. Mukasey additionally identified that it took a court-appointed trustee greater than 15 years to return roughly $14 billion to Mr. Madoff’s buyers. In contrast, the chapter legal professionals overseeing FTX’s unwinding have advised that clients of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s failed trade are prone to get again all of their cash on a comparatively quick timeline.
Judges will not be required to observe federal sentencing pointers. And in imposing a sentence, Choose Kaplan can think about a spread of things, together with Mr. Bankman-Fried’s age, the truth that he’s a first-time offender and the potential for him to be rehabilitated.
However one issue that will work in opposition to Mr. Bankman-Fried is that he selected to testify at his trial and appeared evasive at instances throughout cross-examination. If Choose Kaplan concludes that Mr. Bankman-Fried testified falsely, he may take that into consideration in deciding the sentence.
