Former FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison this week after accusations of fraud. The jailed cryptocurrency chief was a major donor to candidates from the Democratic Party and left-wing causes prior to his arrest.
Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison by U.S. Judge Lewis Kaplan this week. The former cryptocurrency company owner was convicted last year on seven fraud and conspiracy counts in federal court.
“He knew it was wrong,” said the judge. “He knew it was criminal. He regrets that he made a very bad bet about the likelihood of getting caught. But he is not going to admit a thing, as is his right.”
The Justice Department issued a statement regarding the sentencing of the former FTX head with Attorney General Merrick Garland stating that there were “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. I am grateful to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the FBI for their outstanding work in bringing Mr. Bankman-Fried to justice,” he said.
Sam Bankman-Fried could finish serving his prison sentence by age 50. Here’s what that might look like. https://t.co/u8AOKHMtsb https://t.co/u8AOKHMtsb
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) March 30, 2024
FBI Director Christopher Wray said that his agency would “aggressively investigate individuals, like Samuel Bankman-Fried, who engage in fraudulent schemes at the expense of the American public and our financial systems.”
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York said that Bankman Fried had “orchestrated one of the largest financial frauds in history, stealing over $8 billion of his customers’ money.”
Bankman-Fried was accused of using his cryptocurrency company FTX to commit fraud. The Justice Department argued that Bankman-Fried was the “leader and mastermind of a scheme to defraud customers of FTX by misappropriating billions of dollars of those customers’ funds.”
Bankman-Fried was convicted relating to take customer funds for personal use. He also donated millions to Democratic Party candidates and emerged as one of the largest donors to the party in recent years.
