Legal experts believe the 32-year-old Sam Bankman-Fried may serve as little as 12.5 years in jail|@SBF_FTX|X
Manhattan Judge Lewis Kaplan sentenced fallen crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) to 25 years in prison yesterday for scamming investors of more than $8 billion through his bankrupt crypto exchange FTX.
SBF was found guilty last November, with charges facing up to 115 years in jail.
Judge Kaplan also ordered a forfeiture of $11.02 billion, which means SBF’s forfeited assets will be used to help repay victims.
He noted that SBF showed no “remorse” for the financial crimes he committed and that there was a risk “that this man will be in a position to do something very bad in the future, and it’s not a trivial risk.”
Legal experts believe the 32-year-old may serve as little as 12.5 years in jail if he shows good behavior. For now, he plans to appeal the judgment.
Three other FTX employees who testified against SBF—ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison, FTX co-founder Gary Wang, and chief engineer Nishad Singh—are awaiting their sentencing after pleading guilty to federal criminal charges.
Several took to social media to compare SBF’s sentencing with other financial scammers like Elizabeth Holmes (who got an 11-year prison sentence for lying and defrauding investors through her failed blood-testing startup Theranos) and Bernard Madoff (who ran a Ponzi scheme and was awarded 150 years behind bars).