Disgraced FTX CEO and Democrat Megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried on Thursday was sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud after facing up to 100 years in jail. His sentence pales in comparison to fraudster Bernie Madoff, who received a sentence of 150 years for his financial crimes.
Judge Lewis Kaplan, who sentenced Bankman-Fried said that SBF committed witness tampering before he was remanded into custody when he communicated with former FTX general counsel. Kaplan also found that he committed perjury during his trial testimony; he reportedly falsely testified that he had no knowledge that Alameda Research, FTX’s sister company and hedge fund, had spent FTX customer deposits before the fall of 2022.
Kaplan also said that Bankman-Fried “wanted to be a hugely politically influential person in this country” and that led to his financial crimes.
The 25-year sentence pales in comparison to the potential 100 years SBF faced based on his crimes, perjury, and witness tampering.
Prosecutor Nicolas Roos said “Sam Bankman-Fried stole over $8 billion in customer money, and I emphasize stole because it was not a liquidity crisis, or an active mismanagement, or poor oversight from the top. It was not a bloodless financial loss on paper.”
Bankman-Fried’s attorney, Marc Mukasey, told the court on Thursday, “Sam was not a ruthless financial serial killer who set out every morning to hurt people.”
“His real motivations were misapprehended and misunderstood. Really he’s an awkward math nerd…He loves video games and veganism, and he’s compassionate to animals,” he added.
“A lot of people feel really let down, and they were very let down, and I am sorry about that. I am sorry about what happened at every stage. And there are things I should’ve done and things I shouldn’t have,” Bankman-Fried told the court.
In early November, Bankman-Fried was convicted of five counts of conspiracy and two counts of wire fraud.
Ahead of Bankman-Fried’s sentencing, current FTX CEO John Ray issued a scathing rebuke of Bankman-Fried, saying that the former FTX CEO made “callously” and “demonstrably false” claims in Bankman-Fried’s efforts to secure a lighter prison term. Ray said that the harm caused by Bankman-Fried is “vast” and his remorse is “nonexistent.”
Although one court convicted Bankman-Fried of fraud and conspiracy, the Department of Justice (DOJ) declined to prosecute Bankman-Fried for his allegedly unlawful political donations using customer funds for his alleged bribery of foreign officials.
Breitbart News reported:
Indeed, during the height of his influence, Bankman-Fried sought to outpace Democrat megadonor George Soros as the largest donor to the party. He reportedly spent $100 million in stolen customer funds to donate mostly to Democrats and was the second largest donor to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. (Only former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave more.) One Puck News report found that Bankman-Fried sought advisers and conducted data experiments to help Democrats during the 2024 elections.
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Bankman-Fried’s mother, Barbara Fried, helped craft the strategic memo that guided the Democrats’ 2020 election strategy as the leader of the Democrat super PAC Mind the Gap. Fried, a Stanford University professor, argued that Democrats should move to get non-partisan Americans registered to vote as it is “four to ten times more cost-effective” at “netting additional Democratic votes.”
The trial against Bankman-Fried yielded many startling revelations about Bankman-Fried and how he operated the cryptocurrency exchange. This includes:
- SBF claimed to be soulless when writing a list of pros and cons about being in a relationship with Caroline Ellison, his on-and-off girlfriend and the head of Alameda
- Lawyers for Bankman-Fried claimed he was simply a “math nerd” who “didn’t steal from anyone”
- FTX cofounder Gary Wang spilled his guts on the company’s fraud
- Bribery and Thai prostitutes were used as bargaining chips to unlock $1 billion of frozen funds on other digital currency exchanges
- Bankman-Fried needed Adderall to “meaningfully participate” in the trial
- Bankman-Fried ignored employee concerns about extravagant spending, including a $30 million penthouse in the Bahamas that served as the company’s headquarters
- Bankman-Fried only “skimmed” the company’s terms of service
- Bankman-Fried was “foolish” to stand as a witness during the trial
- Lawyers for Bankman-Fried decried his conditions in jail, including a lack of vegan meals, saying, “because he’s following his principles, [Bankman-Fried] is only now subsisting on a diet of bread and water.”
Another infamous fraudster, Bernard “Bernie” Madoff,” was sentenced to 150 years in prison for his multi-billion dollar fraud scheme.
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.