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Federal prosecutors requested a New York choose on Friday to condemn FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried to between 40 and 50 years in jail for cryptocurrency crimes they described as a “historic fraud.”
Prosecutors made the request as they submitted their presentence suggestions to a federal choose who will sentence the person who at one time dazzled the cryptocurrency world along with his promotional abilities, together with his entry to well-known individuals keen to advertise his companies.
Bankman-Fried, 32, is scheduled to be sentenced in Manhattan federal court docket on March 28 following his November conviction on fraud and conspiracy costs.
Prosecutors say he price prospects and buyers in FTX and its associated corporations not less than $10 billion from 2017 by way of 2022.
He was extradited to the United States in December 2022 from the Bahamas after his corporations collapsed a month earlier. Initially permitted to stay at house along with his mother and father in Palo Alto, California, he was jailed final yr weeks earlier than his trial after Choose Lewis A. Kaplan concluded that he had tried to tamper with trial witnesses.
Of their presentence submission, prosecutors described Bankman-Fried’s crimes as “one of many largest monetary frauds in historical past, and what’s possible the biggest fraud within the final decade.”
Seth Wenig / AP
“The defendant victimized tens of hundreds of individuals and corporations, throughout a number of continents, over a interval of a number of years. He stole cash from prospects who entrusted it to him; he lied to buyers; he despatched fabricated paperwork to lenders; he pumped hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in unlawful donations into our political system; and he bribed international officers. Every of those crimes is worthy of a prolonged sentence,” they wrote.
Prosecutors invoke Bankman-Fried’s political donations, bribes
They stated his “illegal political donations to over 300 politicians and political motion teams, amounting to in extra of $100 million, is believed to be the largest-ever marketing campaign finance offense.”
And so they stated his $150 million in bribes to Chinese language authorities officers was one of many single largest by a person.
“Even following FTX’s chapter and his subsequent arrest, Bankman-Fried shirked accountability, deflected blame to market occasions and different people, tried to tamper with witnesses, and lied repeatedly below oath,” prosecutors stated, citing his testimony at trial.
FTX’s bankruptcy in November of 2022 solid a cloud over the complete crypto trade, because the sudden collapse of different main trade gamers vaporized billions in consumer wealth.
“So many individuals believed in him, he was a genius,” Natalie Tien, a former FTX worker, advised CBS Information final yr.
Tien stated attending the trial of her former boss was cathartic after experiencing months of confusion and despair when his empire collapsed and he or she too “misplaced some huge cash.”
Bankman-Fried’s attorneys attacked earlier sentence suggestion
Two weeks in the past, Bankman-Fried’s attorneys attacked a probation workplace suggestion that their client serve 100 years in prison, saying a sentence of that size can be “grotesque” and “barbaric.”
They urged the choose to condemn Bankman-Fried to just some years behind bars after calculating federal sentencing tips to advocate a time period of 5 to six 1/2 years in jail.
They cited their consumer’s medical circumstances, which embrace autism, in addition to his targets to enhance the world by way of his now-defunct crypto change, according to the Wall Avenue Journal.
“Sam is just not the ‘evil genius’ depicted within the media or the grasping villain described at trial,” his attorneys wrote. “Sam is a 31-year-old, first-time, nonviolent offender, who was joined within the conduct at concern by not less than 4 different culpable people, in a matter the place victims are poised to get well —had been at all times poised to get well— 100 cents on the greenback.”
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