Sam Bankman-Fried, an American entrepreneur and crypto king, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday for his involvement in scamming consumers of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
In a federal courtroom in lower Manhattan, United States District Judge Lewis Kaplan described the defence case as deceptive, analytically faulty, and speculative.
Kaplan said Bankman-Fried obstructed justice and interfered with witnesses while presenting his defence, which he considered in his sentence judgement.
After a two-hour hearing, Judge Lewis Kaplan stated that Bankman-Fried understood what he was doing was illegal and regretted placing a terrible gamble on the chance of getting arrested.
Bankman-Fried, dressed in a beige jailhouse jumpsuit, apologised, saying he had taken “selfish” actions while managing FTX and “threw it all away.”
“It haunts me every day,” he admitted in a statement. “There are a lot of mistakes that I made.”
Bankman-Fried, on the other hand, stated in court that FTX had the means to compensate consumers in the event of its failure.
Meanwhile, authorities claim Bankman-Fried stole more than $10 billion (£7.9 billion) from unknowing consumers in “one of the biggest financial frauds” in US history.
FTX was worth $32 billion before going bankrupt in 2022, while SBF built a public image that attracted celebrities, politicians, and business giants.
Prosecutors wanted up to 50 years, but Bankman-Fried’s legal team argued for no more than six and a half years.
He was convicted on seven criminal offences in November and has been incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn ever since.
cc: Vanguard Ng
