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Media: Ex-crypto king Bankman-Fried should go to prison for 25 years
Sam Bankman-Fried in front of the federal courthouse in Manhattan (archive photo)
© Bebeto Matthews / DPA
Former cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried, convicted of fraud, will be sentenced to 25 years in prison. The responsible New York judge announced his decision on Thursday, as US media reported from the courtroom.
US crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried has been sentenced to 25 years in prison. This sentence was imposed by a court on Thursday New York. The founder of the bankrupt cryptocurrency platform FTX was accused of embezzling billions of dollars in customer funds.
The public prosecutor’s office had called for a prison sentence of 40 to 50 years. “His life over the past few years has been characterized by incomparable greed and hubris, by ambition and self-justification, by taking risks and repeatedly playing with other people’s money,” she wrote in explanation.
Defense says Bankman-Fried is not a “supervillain”
Bankman-Fried’s defense lawyers, on the other hand, had pleaded for a good five to six and a half years in prison. Your client is by no means the “super villain” described by the prosecution. The required prison sentence is “medieval.” They also pointed out that FTX customers received a large portion of their money back. Judge Kaplan did not accept this argument. “A thief who brings his loot to Las Vegas and successfully bets with the stolen money is not entitled to any relief from his sentence by using his Las Vegas winnings to repay the stolen money.”
In a statement, Bankman-Fried apologized to his former employees. “I’m sorry for what happened. There were things I should have done and said and things I shouldn’t have.” Some of his former associates had pleaded guilty and implicated Bankman-Fried in his fraud trial.
The jury found it proven that Bankman-Fried, known for his appearances in jeans and a T-shirt and for his distinctive mop of hair, had embezzled eight billion dollars in customer money out of pure greed in order to speculate and finance his lavish lifestyle. Although he admitted errors in the process, he rejected the accusation of fraud several times.
He had also announced that he would appeal against the verdict and the amount of the sentence. In addition to Bankman-Fried, his parents, university professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, were present at Thursday’s hearing.