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Federal judge Lewis Kaplan has sentenced former FTX crypto wiz and Democratic moneyman Sam Bankman-Fried to twenty-five years in the slammer. For the peculiar, truly twitchy criminal who was convicted of securities fraud after bankrupting his cryptocurrency exchange and a mutual fund, it has to be a victory of sorts, as prosecutors were out for a term of 40-50 years. For all SBF’s lawyers argued that he deserved no more than five years or so in the hoosgow by virtue of that same innate oddness, the judge was having none of it.
This felonious freak, the judge basically said, would do it all over again in a heartbeat.
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday for the massive fraud and conspiracy that doomed his cryptocurrency exchange and a related hedge fund, Alameda Research.
The sentence in Manhattan federal court was significantly less than the 40 to 50 years in prison that federal prosecutors wanted for Bankman-Fried, but it was much more than the five to six-and-a-half years suggested by his attorneys.“There is a risk that this man will be in position to do something very bad in the future,” Judge Lewis Kaplan said before sentencing the 32-year-old and ordering him to pay $11 billion in forfeiture to the U.S. government.
For such an ungainly, unattractive guy, he sure had the world bamboozled.
…Bankman-Fried’s lawyer Marc Mukasey, in asking Kaplan for leniency, focused on his client’s psychological problems, noting that his mother said Bankman-Fried had “terrific sadness at his core,” which has been “a constant presence in his life.”
Mukasey noted that Bankman-Fried once wrote in his journal that he “doesn’t feel pleasure or happiness.”
“Sam was not a ruthless financial serial killer who set out every morning to hurt people,” the lawyer said.
Instead, “He’s an awkward math nerd” with a “tireless work ethic,” said the lawyer, who also compared the FTX founder to “a beautiful puzzle.
