New York
CNN
—
Federal prosecutors are calling for onetime crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried to be sentenced to 40-50 years in jail for stealing billions of {dollars} from prospects and defrauding buyers in his now-bankrupt crypto trade, FTX.
Bankman-Fried, who turned 32 this month, was convicted in November of stealing greater than $8 billion and fascinating his workers in a yearslong coverup, in what prosecutors have known as one of many largest monetary frauds in historical past.
His sentencing is scheduled for March 28.
“The large scale of the fraud at FTX is measured not simply by the sum of money that was stolen,” prosecutors stated in a submitting in Manhattan federal court docket on Friday. “The fraud at FTX may be measured within the quantity and varieties of victims, within the fraud’s geographic attain, and within the breadth and frequency of the illegal and unethical acts.”
Attorneys for Bankman-Fried have urged Choose Lewis Kaplan to contemplate a far shorter jail sentence of not more than six-and-a-half years. In a court docket submitting final month, they argued that Bankman-Fried is a nonviolent offender who was abetted by not less than 4 different folks, who pleaded responsible to the crimes.
Underneath federal sentencing tips, Bankman-Fried may face a most sentence of 110 years. He presently resides in a Brooklyn jail whereas awaiting sentencing.
Prosecutors wrote that whereas “Bankman-Fried is deserving of a extreme sanction,” an efficient life sentence exceeding 100 years “shouldn’t be mandatory.”
A 40- to 50-year time period “underscores the remarkably critical nature of the hurt to 1000’s of victims; prevents the defendant from ever once more committing fraud; and sends a strong sign to others who may be tempted to have interaction in monetary misconduct that the results can be extreme,” they stated Friday.
Bankman-Fried’s lawyer, Marc Mukasey, instructed CNN on Friday the protection would have a response “early subsequent week.”