In November, Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of FTX, was found guilty of fraud. Prosecutors described his actions as “the largest fraud of the last decade.” The Manhattan court ruling came after Judge Lewis Kaplan expressed concern about Bankman-Fried’s potential to cause harm in the future. Despite being sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for defrauding customers and investors in FTX, Bankman-Fried’s sentence is less than what prosecutors had requested.
The judge agreed with prosecutors that Bankman-Fried aspired to be a highly influential figure in the country, which motivated his financial crimes. Notably, Bernie Madoff received a 150-year sentence for his Ponzi scheme and Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced to over 11 years for defrauding investors at Theranos. In addition to the prison term, the court ordered Bankman-Fried to forfeit $11.2 billion but ruled out restitution due to the impracticality of identifying and compensating the numerous victims. The judge suggested a medium-security or lower-security facility close to San Francisco for Bankman-Fried to serve his sentence so that his family could visit him.
As this story develops further details will be updated accordingly.