Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in prison for his role in defrauding users of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
In a federal courtroom in lower Manhattan, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan called the defense argument misleading, logically flawed and speculative.
He said Bankman-Fried had obstructed justice and tampered with witnesses in mounting his defense — something Kaplan said he weighed in his sentencing decision.
Bankman-Fried, wearing a beige jailhouse jumpsuit, struck an apologetic tone, saying he had made a series of “selfish” decisions while leading FTX and “threw it all away.”
“It haunts me every day,” he said in his statement.
Prosecutors had sought as much as 50 years, while Bankman-Fried’s legal team argued for no more than 6½ years. He was convicted on seven criminal counts in November and had been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since.
In a statement following Thursday’s sentencing, Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Bankman-Fried had orchestrated one of the largest frauds in financial history.
“Today’s sentence will prevent the defendant from ever again committing fraud and is an important message to others who might be tempted to engage in financial crimes that justice will be swift, and the consequences will be severe,” he said.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that there are “serious consequences for defrauding customers and investors.”
“Anyone who believes they can hide their financial crimes behind wealth and power, or behind a shiny new thing they claim no one else is smart enough to understand, should think twice,” he said.
Bankman-Fried plans to appeal both the conviction and the sentence. A spokesperson for his parents said in a statement on their behalf: “We are heartbroken and will continue to fight for our son.”
Bankman-Fried’s lawyers had pleaded for leniency, citing what they described as mental health…
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