Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted on All Seven Charges, Facing 115-Year Prison Sentence

Former cryptocurrency billionaire and FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has been convicted of all seven fraud charges. The once-prominent CEO now faces a potential 115-year prison sentence after being found guilty of deceiving customers on his failed digital exchange, FTX. The cryptocurrency mogul and FTX co-founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, was convicted of federal fraud and other charges on Thursday.

Prosecutors stated that the jury decided the fate of the disgraced 31-year-old crypto financier, concluding that he committed wire fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering after deceiving customers on the FTX cryptocurrency exchange and individuals lending money to his investment company, Alameda Research.

“Bankman-Fried maintains his innocence and will vigorously fight the charges against him,” his attorney Mark Cohen said, according to CNN.

Judge Lewis Kaplan has set the sentencing date for March 28. Throughout the trial, which began with jury selection on October 3, the jury heard from numerous witnesses, including top executives Gary Wang, Nishad Singh, and Caroline Ellison, who were also close associates of Bankman-Fried.

Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda, was once romantically involved with him. Bankman-Fried and his colleagues worked together and, in some cases, lived together in a lavish $30 million penthouse in Nassau, Bahamas, where FTX is headquartered.

ABC News reported that Ellison has pleaded guilty to federal charges and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. In a shocking testimony, she told the court that her former boyfriend had instructed her to commit fraud, according to multiple news outlets, including NBC News.

“Sam directed me to commit these crimes,” she said in her testimony, alleging that Bankman-Fried had asked her to transfer funds from his customers at the now-defunct FTX cryptocurrency exchange to Alameda to repay debts owed by Alameda to other companies, as reported by news outlets.

She said, “In the end, we collected about $14 billion, some of which we could return.” “I sent a balance sheet to the lenders at Sam’s direction, which falsely stated the assets and liabilities of Alameda.”

She also alleged that Bankman-Fried designed a way for her to transfer the money, according to CNBC and NBC News. She said he was “very ambitious” and believed he had a 5% chance of becoming the President of the United States one day, according to the Associated Press.

Arrested on December 12, 2022, in Nassau, the former CEO did not plead guilty to the 13 charges, including fraud and bribery. In December 2022, he was released on bail with a $250 million bond and was ordered to stay at his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California. His bail was revoked in August 2023 due to allegations of witness tampering, as reported by ABC News, and he was subsequently taken into custody.

Bankman-Fried’s dramatic downfall occurred as authorities began investigating his company in 2022 after it filed for bankruptcy protection due to billions of dollars in losses within a short period.

Described as “one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history” by Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who accused Bankman-Fried in 2022, he stated, “From 2019 until early this year, Bankman-Fried and his co-conspirators stole billions of dollars from FTX customers. He used that money for his personal benefit, including personal investments and expenses, as well as debts of the Alameda Research hedge fund,” as reported by CNN.

>>> Prosecutors Evoke FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s Statements to Undermine His Defense

Prior to his arrest, Bankman-Fried was hailed by Forbes as “one of the wealthiest in cryptocurrency.” According to FTX’s lawyers, at the height of his success, his company was valued at $40 billion, as reported by NPR. Bankman-Fried co-founded Alameda Research in 2017, three years after graduating from MIT with a physics degree. Two years later, he established FTX.

Authorities allege that Bankman-Fried used customer funds from FTX to bail out Alameda without informing investors. Reuters reported: “U.S. prosecutors said Bankman-Fried engaged in a scheme to defraud FTX customers by misappropriating their deposits to pay Alameda’s expenses and debts, as well as to invest.”

Prosecutors stated that he deceived those lending money to Alameda “by providing them with false and misleading information about the hedge fund’s financial condition while also concealing the money he earned from fraudulent transfer activities,” as per prosecutors.