![Sam Bankman Fried](https://thepoliticalinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/sam-bankman-fried-1120x630.jpg)
![Sam Bankman Fried](https://thepoliticalinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/sam-bankman-fried-1120x630.jpg)
Written by Brett Rowland (The Center Square)
A judge sentenced FTX founder Samuel Bankman Fried to 25 years in prison on Thursday, marking a long fall from grace for the former crypto star.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan also sentenced Samuel Bankman Fried, known as SBF, to three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay $11 billion for orchestrating a massive fraud.
Bankman Fried, founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX and cryptocurrency trading company Alameda Research, misappropriated billions of dollars of customer funds entrusted to FTX. Prosecutors say he defrauded FTX investors of more than $1.7 billion and Alameda's lenders of more than $1.3 billion.
„Deceiving customers and investors has serious consequences,“ Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. „Those who believe they can hide their financial crimes behind wealth and power, or behind some shiny new thing that claims to be smarter than anyone can understand, should think twice.“
Man Fried, 32, a banker from Stamford, Calif., was previously convicted of two counts of wire fraud, two counts of wire fraud conspiracy, one count of securities fraud conspiracy and one count of commodity fraud conspiracy. After a month-long trial, he will be charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Bankman Fried previously headed FTX, a digital asset exchange platform that soared in popularity before crashing in 2022. Before the scandal broke, Bankman Fried spent time with the rich and powerful. According to OpenSecrets, Bankman Fried made approximately $40 million in general donations during the 2022 election cycle, with the bulk of that, $36.8 million, going to Democratic Party-affiliated organizations. After the scandal, like Center Square before it, those who took Bankman Freed's money raced to get it back. report.
Bankman Fried's sentence ranks among the longest for fraud in the US
Bernard Evers, co-founder and CEO of WorldCom, was sentenced to 25 years in prison, but was released after 13 years due to declining health. He died a month after his release.
Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling was initially sentenced to 24 years in prison, but the sentence was later reduced to 14 years. He was released in 2019 after serving 12 years in prison.
Bernie Madoff, the investor behind the largest known Ponzi scheme, has been sentenced to 150 years in prison. He died in 2021 after serving nine years in prison.
Bankman Fried was the founder and CEO of FTX, an international cryptocurrency exchange. According to federal prosecutors, he was the mastermind behind a scheme to defraud FTX customers by misappropriating billions of dollars in their funds from 2019 to 2022.
Bankman Freed for investing in candidates and making millions of dollars in political contributions, as well as repaying billions of dollars in loans from Alameda Research, a crypto-trading fund also founded by Bankman Freed. , made personal use of FTX customer funds. Bankman Freed also defrauded Alameda's lenders and FTX stock investors by providing false and misleading financial information that concealed the misuse of customer deposits, prosecutors said.
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