40 to 50 years in prison required for Sam Bankman-Fried, the ex-boss of FTX

The founder and former boss of the cryptocurrency platform FTX will receive his prison sentence on March 28.

The federal prosecutor in Manhattan is seeking 40 to 50 years in prison against former cryptocurrency tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried, convicted in November of fraud valued at eight billion dollars, according to documents Friday from the American justice system.

Tried last November by the New York federal criminal court, the founder and former boss of the cryptocurrency platform FTX will receive his sentence on March 28 and faces up to 110 years in prison.

“A prison sentence of 40 to 50 years (…) is necessary to illustrate the seriousness of the accused’s crimes, wrote Damian Williams’ prosecutor in his memorandum of more than 110 pages, made public Friday.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s lawyers (“SBF”) had requested, a few days ago, a reduced sentence of six years in prison. But for prosecutor Williams, the young financier “committed one of the biggest financial frauds in American history, a multi-billion dollar scheme supposed to make him the king of cryptos”.

Founder and boss of the cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX, “SBF” was found guilty of all seven charges brought against him for embezzling several billion dollars of customer deposits without their authorization.

No second trial

A second trial was initially scheduled to begin last Monday and cover five other charges, including conspiracy to corrupt a foreign agent and make donations to politicians. They were excluded from the first trial because they were not included in the agreement reached with the Bahamian authorities to extradite Sam Bankman-Fried in December 2022.

But Mr. Williams ended up waiving a second trial at the end of December. The prosecutor then indicated that the Bahamas had still not given the green light and that the American authorities were aiming for a “rapid resolution” of the “SBF” file.

Sam Bankman-Fried was accused of authorizing the payment of approximately $150 million in bribes to Chinese officials to unlock FTX’s assets in China. He was also accused of having used the money of FTX clients to make donations to political candidates, notably Joe Biden.