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Sam Bankman Fried should be sent to prison for up to 50 years for “orchestrating one of the largest financial frauds in history,” US prosecutors told a judge ahead of the FTX founder's sentencing this month.
The 32-year-old, who was convicted of seven counts of fraud and money laundering late last year, “victimized tens of thousands of people” by stealing more than $8 billion from clients and investors, the government said in a memo on Friday. Before his cryptocurrency exchange collapsed in November 2022.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan rejected Bankman-Fried's attorneys' claim that their client should be shown leniency because clients would likely get their money back through FTX's bankruptcy proceedings. They pointed to the “suffocating sense of dread and despair felt by victims when they were unable to withdraw their money, the irreversible shame and embarrassment, and the resulting damage to lives and businesses.”
Last month, the former cryptocurrency mogul's lawyers asked the court to impose a sentence of no more than six and a half years, portraying their client as a “selfless” and “altruistic” young man who “devoted his life to charitable work.” “.
They described the 100-year sentence recommended by probation officers as “grotesque” and “barbaric,” and said that, as a person with autism spectrum disorder, Bankman-Fred was “uniquely vulnerable among the prison population.”
But the government said in its report that the FTX founder “understood the rules, but decided they did not apply to him” and engaged in unethical behavior “based on malignant paranoia” and “a sense of superiority.”
Prosecutors said there was a “substantial likelihood that if the defendant were released back into the community at a young enough age, he would have the opportunity to engage in another scam.”
“This is not just speculation,” they added. “In the days following the FTX bankruptcy, and even after the defendant was indicted, he considered launching “Archangel LTD,” which would be an alternative to the FTX bankruptcy and would lead to the relaunch of the exchange.”
Prosecutors also emphasized previous allegations against Bankman-Fried that were never brought to trial. These allegations include that he bribed Chinese government officials and that he and his company made “illegal political donations to more than 300 politicians and political action groups, amounting to more than $100 million,” in what they said was the largest campaign ever. Financing crime.
Bankman-Fried's lawyers previously pledged to appeal the ruling, but his attorney has yet to do so. The sentencing hearing is scheduled to take place on March 28.
Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang and Nishad Singh – three of Bankman-Fried's closest colleagues at FTX who pleaded guilty and testified against him at trial – are scheduled to be sentenced at a later date.
