Bankman-Fried gets 25 years for fraud

What happened

A federal judge in New York on Thursday sentenced Sam Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison for defrauding customers, money laundering and other crimes tied to the collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange FTX. He was also ordered to forfeit $11 billion in assets.

Who said what

Judge Lewis Kaplan said Bankman-Fried deserved a long sentence because he lied at trial, failed to show remorse and there's significant "risk that this man will be in a position to do something very bad in the future." Bankman-Fried, 32, said he is "sorry about what happened at every stage" and "my useful life is probably over now."

The commentary

The stiff sentence sets a "crucial" example for aspiring crypto fraudsters, Crypto Council for Innovation CEO Sheila Warren told The Washington Post. "What we don't want to do is incentivize people to say, 'Oh, you just pay a big fine and do whatever you want.' No, you go to jail if you lie, if you steal."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

What next?

Kaplan said he will advise that Bankman-Fried be sent to a low- or medium-security prison near San Francisco. The fallen "crypto king" will probably serve 17 to 20 years, The Wall Street Journal said, citing prison consultants. Bankman-Fried is young enough that "he will see the light of day," said Ira Lee Sorkin, a defense lawyer whose client Bernie Madoff died in prison, to The New York Times. "But he is going to spend a lot of time in a cell."