Sam Bankman-Fried Guilty in FTX Fraud Trial

After about four hours of deliberation, former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty of all seven charges in his criminal trial in New York by a jury.

Bankman-Fried was found guilty of two counts of wire fraud, two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one count of securities fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, and one count of money laundering conspiracy.

On March 28, 2024, he will be sentenced by New York District Judge Lewis Kaplan. Prosecutors for the government will recommend a sentence, but Judge Kaplan will have the final say.

Each of Bankman-Fried's crimes carries a maximum sentence of five to twenty years in prison, with the wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy carrying a maximum sentence of twenty years.

Bankman-Fried's crimes, according to New York Southern District U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, were "a multibillion-dollar scheme designed to make him the king of crypto" and one of the largest financial frauds in American history.

"We respect the jury's decision," Bankman-Fried's attorney, Mark Cohen, said in a statement. However, we are extremely disappointed with the outcome.

Mr. Bankman Fried maintains his innocence and will continue to vigorously defend himself."

Other key FTX executives have pleaded guilty to various charges and worked with the government to testify against Bankman-Fried during the five-week trial, including former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, FTX co-founder Gary Wang, and former FTX engineering head Nishad Singh.

Bankman-Fried had pleaded not guilty to all charges, and he took the stand during his trial to maintain his innocence and blame FTX's November 2022 collapse on "a number of big mistakes."

He denied any wrongdoing in the FTX-Alameda relationship and attempted to distance himself from key decisions.

Bankman-Fried blamed Wang for developing a function that allowed Alameda to trade funds it didn't have on FTX, and he claimed he "wasn't entirely sure what happened" with Alameda's line of credit, which ballooned to billions in the collapsing crypto market of 2022.

In his testimony, he also blamed Ellison for failing to focus on risk management and stated that he did not believe he defrauded FTX customers by taking over $8 billion in their funds; instead, he framed it as Alameda borrowing from the exchange.

Sources:

https://cointelegraph.com/news/ftx-founder-sam-bankman-fried-found-guilty-on-all-charges

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