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FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison for $10 billion fraud

Molly Crane-Newman, New York Daily News on

Published in News & Features

NEW YORK — Disgraced cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay $11 billion in forfeiture on Thursday — less than a quarter of the time he potentially faced for what the feds called one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history.

“There is a risk that this man will be in a position to do something very bad in the future, and it’s not a trivial risk, not a trivial risk at all,” Manhattan federal court Judge Lewis Kaplan said before announcing his decision.

“In part, my sentence will be for the purpose of disabling him — to the extent that can be done — for a significant amount of time.”

The fallen FTX founder, whose catastrophic downfall in late 2022 came soon after he was positioned as the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, faced a maximum of 110 years in prison.

He hung his head and looked somber as he learned his fate, showing little emotion as U.S. marshals escorted him out of the courtroom wearing tan-colored prison wear and shackles minutes later. He’s been incarcerated at Brooklyn’s federal jail since Kaplan revoked his $100 bond last August.

Kaplan announced the sentence after hearing from Bankman-Fried, his lawyers, the government and one of more than 200 victims who contacted him before the proceeding.

 

“A lot of crying, sleepless nights. I have a baby son and another toddler,” Sunil Kavuri, who traveled from London for the hearing, said, noting he was among countless FTX investors whose dreams were “destroyed” after losing everything.

“I suffered every day, every week for the past few years,” he said.

A jury in November found the 32-year-old from Palo Alto, California, guilty of wire fraud, money laundering conspiracy, and related counts for siphoning more than $10 billion from customers of his global cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, to its sister hedge fund, Alameda Research, using it in part to splurge on Caribbean real estate and to influence crypto legislation in Washington.

Prosecutors on Thursday said his illegal campaign contributions to Democrats and Republicans, totaling tens of millions of dollars, represented the largest election crime in the nation’s history.

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