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Prosecutors Recommending 40-50 Years Imprisonment for Sam Bankman-Fried
Prosecutors in the federal fraud case against Sam Bankman-Fried have recommended a prison sentence of 40 to 50 years, along with $11 billion in fines and asset forfeiture, according to a sentencing memo filed by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Southern District of New York on Friday. Bankman-Fried, the disgraced FTX founder and former CEO, was found guilty of seven fraud and conspiracy charges last November following the collapse of the prominent cryptocurrency exchange in late 2022.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams stated, “Although it is unlikely (but not impossible) that the defendant will work in finance again, and will likely forfeit all of his ill-gotten gains, justice requires that he receive a prison sentence commensurate with the extraordinary dimensions of his crimes. For these reasons, the legitimate purposes of punishment require a sentence of 40 to 50 years’ imprisonment.”
Prosecutors accused Bankman-Fried and his associates of embezzling billions of dollars’ worth of customer funds from FTX through the Alameda Research trading firm, a sister company of FTX. Bankruptcy lawyers have devised a plan to compensate customers after recovering stolen assets and investments, as well as selling the exchange’s remaining cryptocurrency holdings.
Williams emphasized, “All of this conduct was willful. In every part of his business, and with respect to each crime committed, the defendant demonstrated a brazen disrespect for the rule of law. He understood the rules, but decided they did not apply to him. He knew what society deemed illegal and unethical, but disregarded that based on a pernicious megalomania guided by the defendant’s own values and sense of superiority.”
Although the federal sentencing guidelines for Bankman-Fried’s crimes theoretically call for a life sentence of over 100 years, the Justice Department’s recommendation is specifically predicated on the gravity of the offense, its circumstances, and the level of seriousness involved. Williams noted, “Bankman-Fried’s crimes were serious and long-running, causing billions of dollars in losses and significant harm to tens of thousands of victims financially and emotionally. The sheer enormity of the loss in this case, and the fact that the loss came in the form of stealing victims’ money, places Bankman-Fried in a category of defendants where sentences of forty years or more are deemed appropriate.”
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