The former FTX CEO was convicted of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy in November, a year after the once-giant cryptocurrency exchange collapsed.

FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison Thursday for his conviction on seven different fraud and conspiracy charges.
Bankman-Fried was accused of running a massive fraud in FTX and Alameda, which collapsed dramatically in 2022, losing customers some $8 to $11 billion.
NEW YORK — Sam Bankman-Fried must spend 25 years in prison for the fraud and conspiracy scheme that ultimately undid his once-giant cryptocurrency exchange FTX, a federal judge ruled on Thursday.

As he prepared to deliver the sentence, Judge Lewis Kaplan said Bankman-Fried never offered "a word of remorse for commission of terrible crimes." Kaplan said Bankman-Fried's attempt to craft a positive and altruistic persona in the public eye was, at least in part, "an act." He rejected the defense's argument that Bankman-Fried was not at risk of committing future crimes., "Mr. Bankman-Fried's name is pretty much mud right now around the world," but he is "persistent" and "a great marketing guy," said the judge while explaining why the FTX CEO deserved a lengthy sentence.

Kaplan judge announced his decision after a two-hour hearing in a Manhattan courtroom during which prosecutors, Bankman-Fried's attorney, a victim, a lawyer who spoke on behalf of other FTX victims and Bankman-Fried himself delivered comments. This followed Bankman-Fried's conviction on seven criminal counts in November, a year after FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The former FTX CEO will appeal his conviction, according to his lawyer Thursday, a process that couldn't begin until Kaplan's sentencing decision.

Bankman-Fried was also fined $11 billion, which includes forfeiture agreements to sell assets like a private jet.

"Today's sentence will prevent the defendant from ever again committing fraud and is an important message to others who might be tempted to engage in financial crimes that justice will be swift, and the consequences will be severe," Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement on social media platform X. "The scale of his crimes is measured not just by the amount of money that was stolen, but by the extraordinary harm caused to victims, who in some cases had their life savings wiped out overnight."

“A beautiful puzzle”

Bankman-Fried’s attorney Mark Mukasey told Judge Kaplan that his client “doesn’t make decisions with malice in his heart – he makes them with math in his head,” adding “Anybody who really knows Sam, they’ll say he’s not a greedy, power hungry fiend…really, he’s an awkward math nerd.”

Mukasey repeatedly referenced Bankman-Fried’s autism and social awkwardness, and his commitment to altruism, calling him “a beautiful puzzle” with “a tireless work ethic and a completely, off the chart, mind-blowing intellect,” and asked the judge to not destroy the prime of his client’s life.

“Don’t deprive him of the opportunity to meet a partner and have a baby,” Mukasey told the court.

Bankman-Fried speaks

When it was his turn to speak, Bankman-Fried said he was more concerned with the FTX customers waiting for their money to be returned than his “emotional life” or “hypothetical future kids.”

"My useful life is probably over. It's been over for a while now," said Bankman-Fried, who has spent the last six months in the notorious Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn.

As he walked into the courtroom on Thursday – his parents and a crowd of assorted onlookers watching on from the court's viewing gallery – Bankman-Fried was noticeably thinner than he had been during last year's trial. Bankman-Fried's signature curly mop of hair – which had been trimmed down for his October trial – looked fuller but more unkempt than it had previously.

Bankman-Fried, wearing a tan prison jumpsuit with short sleeves, spoke for several minutes as a U.S. Marshall stood directly behind him. Bankman-Fried repeated his long-standing claim that "there were enough assets, there are enough assets" for FTX's creditors to get paid back in full.

Bankman-Fried told the court that righting the ship after his company’s self-induced “liquidity crisis” – which he called “in part, my doing” – would have made for “an unpleasant few weeks,” but he insisted “FTX would have survived” even if Alameda, the trading shop he tried to rescue using FTX customer funds, was forced to shut down.

Even if creditors do receive their funds back now, they would be "deprived of the gains" seen by the broader crypto market over the past several months, he said, echoing a concern stated by FTX creditors in victim impact statements filed by the DOJ over the past few weeks.

Bankman-Fried extended compliments to three of his former friends – and key government witnesses – Nishad Singh, Gary Wang and Caroline Ellison, expressing regret for his lead role in FTX's collapse. “I’m sorry about what happened at every stage…at the end of the day, I failed everyone I cared about,” Bankman-Fried said, adding, "I was responsible."

Focus on customers

Bankman-Fried spoke after an FTX creditor and an attorney who represents a class action suit against the bankruptcy estate – both of whom used their time to claim that the FTX bankruptcy estate is mishandling customer funds. All three said the estate's proposed payouts to creditors are lower than they should be given current market prices.

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