Sam Bankman-Fried, the former billionaire and founder of FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison. The federal judge ruled that Bankman-Fried committed perjury and attempted witness tampering. This sentencing concludes an astonishing rise-and-fall saga where Bankman-Fried was once lauded as one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs before losing more than $8 billion worth of FTX customer deposits.
Federal prosecutors had recommended a sentence of 40-50 years due to the “extraordinary dimensions of his crimes” and the risk that he might carry out a future fraudulent scheme. However, Bankman-Fried and his lawyers argued for a sentence of five to seven years. In comparison, Bernie Madoff received a 150-year sentence; Enron CEO Jeff Skilling received a 24-year sentence; and Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes received 11 years.
Judge Lewis Kaplan used strong language to criticize Bankman-Fried and justify his sentence. He said that Bankman-Fried perjured himself three times while under oath, including falsely testifying that he had no knowledge that his trading firm Alameda had spent FTX customer funds until the fall of 2022. He said that Bankman-Fried seemed to lack remorse and had an “exceptional flexibility” with the truth—and that he had never seen as “evasive” a “performance” as Bankman-Fried’s in his 30 years as a judge.
Bankman-Fried apologized for his actions on the stand. “I failed everyone I care about,” he said. “I made a series of bad decisions.” He maintained, however, that he could have paid back customers if he had been allowed to keep control of his company. His sentencing comes four months after a highly publicized trial in which he took the stand to claim that FTX’s collapse was the result of mistakes and not ill intent. Ultimately he was found guilty on all seven of the criminal counts he was charged with by the Department of Justice; the jury took less than five hours to come to their decision.
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