Sam Bankman-Fried, the convicted FTX founder, apologized to his former customers in a federal court on Thursday, saying his “useful life is probably over.”
Topline
Convicted FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried admitted Thursday his “useful life is probably over” as his high-profile criminal fraud case came to a close with a federal judge in New York sentencing the disgraced former crypto head to 25 years in prison.Key Facts
Bankman-Fried, who was convicted late last year on seven counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday, short of the 40 to 50 years prosecutors had requested and the maximum 110-year sentence he faced.
Speaking in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Bankman-Fried—who was also ordered on Thursday to forfeit over $11 billion—said of his collapsed company that he “built something beautiful” and “threw it all away,” saying his decisions leading up to its downfall “haunt [him] every day,” according to transcriptions from multiple outlets.
Bankman-Fried apologized to former FTX customers, saying “a lot of people feel really let down” and that he is “sorry about what happened at every stage”—prosecutors alleged Bankman-Fried stole FTX user funds in a scheme to pay the exchange’s sister firm, Alameda.
