Crypto mogul Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years

NEW YORK (AP) — FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for a cryptocurrency fraud that a prosecutor has described as one of the biggest financial frauds in US history. 

Federal Judge Lewis A. Kaplan imposed the sentence Thursday in a packed Manhattan courtroom. 

The 32-year-old Bankman-Fried was convicted in November of fraud and conspiracy charges brought after his once-soaring cryptocurrency trading platform and related companies collapsed into bankruptcy. 

Bankman-Fried was extradited to the US in December 2022, five years after he started his businesses with plans to revolutionize the emerging cryptocurrency industry.

Bankman-Fried and his crimes before announcing a sentence that was half of what prosecutors sought and less than a quarter of the 105 years recommended by the court’s Probation officers.

“There is absolutely no doubt that Mr. Bankman-Fried’s name right now is pretty much mud around the world,” Kaplan said of the 32-year-old man who once seemed atop the cryptocurrency world before his businesses collapsed in November 2022, leaving customers, investors and lenders short over $11 billion, which the judge ordered him to forfeit.

He was convicted in November of fraud and conspiracy — a dramatic fall from a crest of success that included a Super Bowl advertisement and celebrity endorsements from stars like quarterback Tom Brady, basketball star Stephen Curry and comedian Larry David.

Kaplan imposed the sentence in the same Manhattan courtroom where, four months previously, Bankman-Fried testified that he had intended to revolutionize the emerging cryptocurrency market with his innovative and altruistic ideas, not steal. The judge said Bankman-Fried repeatedly committed perjury when he told lies from the witness stand.

Kaplan said the sentence reflected “that there is a risk that this man will be in position to do something very bad in the future. And it’s not a trivial risk at all.” He added that it was “for the purpose of disabling him to the extent that can appropriately be done for a significant period of time.”

Kaplan said he would advise the Federal Bureau of Prisons to send Bankman-Fried to a medium-security prison near San Francisco because his notoriety, his association with vast wealth, his autism and social awkwardness are likely to make him especially vulnerable at a high-security facility.

Assistant US Attorney Nicolas Roos had recommended a prison sentence of 40 to 50 years, saying it was the only way to ensure “the defendant doesn’t do it again.”