FTX founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, SBF has been sentenced to 25 years in prison.
The sentence in Manhattan federal court was shorter than the 40 to 50 years in prison sought by federal prosecutors but longer than the five to six-and-a-half years suggested by his lawyers.
“There is a risk that this man will be in a position to do something very bad in the future,” Judge Lewis Kaplan said before sentencing the 32-year-old. “And it’s not a trivial risk at all.”
Kaplan stated that the sentence aimed to “disable him to the extent that can appropriately be done for a significant period of time.”
Before his sentencing, Bankman-Fried expressed regret for his actions.
“They built something really beautiful, and I threw all of that away,” he said, referring to his co-workers at FTX, a company once valued at $32 billion. “It haunts me every day.”
“A lot of people feel really let down. And they were very let down,” he added. “And I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry about what happened at every stage.”
“It’s been excruciating to watch this all unfold,” he told Kaplan. “Customers don’t deserve this level of pain.
“I was the CEO of FTX, and I was responsible.”
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement after the sentencing, “Samuel Bankman-Fried orchestrated one of the largest financial frauds in history, stealing over $8 billion of his customers’ money.”
“His deliberate and ongoing lies demonstrated a brazen disregard for his customers’ expectations and disrespect for the rule of law, all so that he could secretly use his customers’ money to expand his own power and influence,” Williams added.
Williams said that the sentence not only would prevent Bankman-Fried from committing fraud again, but also sends “an important message to others who might be tempted to engage in financial crimes that justice will be swift, and the consequences will be severe.”
Bankman-Fried’s family said in a statement, “We are heartbroken and will continue to fight for our son.” Both Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, who are Stanford Law professors, were in court for the sentencing hearing.
Before sentencing SBF, Kaplan rejected “the entirety of defendant’s argument that there was no loss” at FTX, calling that claim “misleading, logically flawed, and speculative.”
After Kaplan's ruling on the guideline enhancement, several victims of Bankman-Fried spoke about the impact of his crimes on their lives.
Bankman-Fried, dressed in a beige jailhouse jumpsuit, listened as the victims addressed the judge.
A jury in November convicted Bankman-Fried of seven counts and held him responsible for the roughly $10 billion of customer deposits that went missing in 2022.
