Sam Bankman-Fried, the 32-year-old former CEO of the now-defunct crypto exchange FTX, has been found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in federal prison. The court ruling came from a Manhattan court last year, where Bankman-Fried was charged with defrauding customers and investors in his failed exchange.
The judge, Lewis Kaplan, delivered the sentence after expressing concern about Bankman-Fried’s future potential for causing harm. Prosecutors argued that Bankman-Fried had ambitions of becoming a highly politically influential figure, which motivated his financial crimes.
While Bankman-Fried’s 25-year sentence was less than what prosecutors had sought, it is still considered a substantial punishment for white-collar fraud cases. Notably, Bernard Madoff received a 150-year sentence for his leading of a $20 billion Ponzi scheme, and Elizabeth Holmes received just over 11 years for defrauding investors in her blood-testing startup, Theranos.
This story is still unfolding, and more details will be updated as they become available.