Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the company FTX specializing in cryptocurrencies, was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in prison for one of the worst financial frauds in recent history, after the judge considered in particular that he had committed several perjuries on the stand.
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He had already been found guilty by a jury in November of the seven charges against him during a trial at the end of which the New York prosecutor, Damian Williams, had requested between 40 and 50 years of imprisonment, while the maximum incurred was 110 years. The sentence is therefore, if we can say so, relatively lenient, but it is accompanied by a seizure of the property of Sam Bankman-Fried for 11 billion dollars. During the hearing in a New York court on Thursday, federal judge Lewis Kaplan did not mince his words, noting that the young man had “ never had a word of remorse for committing a terrible crime “.
He affirmed, with supporting examples, that “ SBF » – Sam Bankman-Fried’s nickname – had committed at least three perjuries when he testified during his trial, as well as witness tampering. For his part, the thirty-year-old – who intends to appeal – apologized, acknowledging having “ made a series of bad decisions “. “ A lot of people feel like they’ve been let down, and we’ve let them down, I’m sorry.said Sam Bankman-Fried. I’m sorry about what happened on every level. “.
Two years ago, Sam Bankman-Fried and his company FTX, based in the Bahamas, allowed his clients to buy cryptocurrencies, primarily bitcoin. It was valued at $30 billion. The young boss gave interviews in which he explained that he wanted to use his fortune to do good and change finance. He lived in style, traveled by private jet, collected real estate investments and luxury goods. He even offered television advertising during the Super Bowl with sports and television stars. He saw himself as a leading political influencer and spent lavishly in Washington to influence cryptocurrency legislation.
The fall of the young crypto giant
Sam Bankman-Fried used, without their consent, the assets of customers of his digital currency exchange platform FTX, to carry out risky transactions via his sister company Alameda, to purchase real estate or to make political donations. Subject to massive withdrawal requests from panicked customers, FTX imploded in November 2022. At the time of its bankruptcy filing, around $9 billion was missing.
In a few hours, the image of the whimsical little genius with full hair and perpetual shorts and T-shirts collapsed, giving way to that of a sorcerer’s apprentice, a fan of crazy bets. The group’s liquidators have already recovered about $6.4 billion in cash and plan to fully reimburse injured customers. They are benefiting in particular from the brutal appreciation of cryptocurrencies, which have recovered after a catastrophic 2022 vintage, marked by several bankruptcies and punctuated by the FTX scandal.
During his trial, which lasted five weeks, the lawyers of “ SBF » had presented him as a young business leader overwhelmed by his workload and victim of the errors of judgment of his partners and employees. To obtain clemency from the federal magistrate, they also mentioned the fact that this former trader had autism spectrum disorders, which makes him, according to them, “ vulnerable within a prison population “. With these elements in mind, the lawyers suggested a sentence of between a little over five and six and a half years in prison.
During the trial, Sam Bankman-Fried’s defense was weakened by the testimonies of three former FTX and Alameda executives, including his former girlfriend, who had all highlighted, in detail, the driving role of the accused in the fraud.
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