FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried told a judge at his sentencing hearing that he made a “series of selfish decisions” at the failed cryptocurrency exchange.
“They built something really beautiful and I threw it all away,” Bankman-Fried said of his colleagues at FTX. “It haunts me every day.”
“It was unbearable to watch it all unfold,” he said. “Customers don’t deserve this pain.
“I was the CEO of FTX and I was in charge.”
A judge ruled Thursday that SBF faces a maximum sentence of 110 years in prison under federal sentencing guidelines for the massive fraud conspiracy that led to the collapse of FTX and a related hedge fund.
Judge Lewis Kaplan increased Bankman-Fried’s sentence after finding that he committed perjury and knowingly obstructed justice at his trial.
Kaplan, who will sentence SBF later Thursday in federal court in Manhattan, won’t necessarily give him that much time. But the verdict underscores the risk that Bankman-Fried will spend decades in prison.
The judge also found on Thursday that the total damages from the fraud on FTX exceeded $550 million. Anything beyond that is “just gravy,” Kaplan noted, noting that further losses would not increase the upper end of the guidance.
However, Kaplan said that at FTX he “rejects defendants’ entire argument that there was no loss,” calling that claim “misleading, logically flawed and speculative.”
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried leaves Manhattan federal court after a court appearance on June 15, 2023 in New York.
Fatih files | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
After Kaplan decided on the policy improvement, several of Bankman-Fried’s victims began speaking out about the impact of his crimes.
Bankman-Fried, wearing a beige prison jumpsuit, looked at the victims as they spoke to the judge.
Federal prosecutors want to sentence Bankman-Fried to a prison sentence of between 40 and 50 years. His defense team asked Kaplan to give him a much shorter sentence, between five and six and a half years behind bars.
Kaplan presided over the trial that ended in November when a jury found Bankman-Fried, 32, guilty of seven counts and found him responsible for the roughly $10 billion in customer deposits lost in 2022.
The charges included wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud against FTX customers and against lenders to sister hedge fund Alameda Research; Conspiracy to commit securities fraud and conspiracy to commit commodities fraud against FTX investors; and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Bankman-Fried’s parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, are in the courtroom for the sentencing.
Former FTX CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s mother, Barbara Fried (l), and his father, Joseph Bankman, arrive at Manhattan Federal Court on March 28, 2024, for his sentencing in Manhattan Federal Court in New York City to announce.
Timothy A. Clary | Afp | Getty Images
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2024-03-28 15:20:41
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