Today marks the start of Sam Bankman-Frieda’s fraud trial in Manhattan. And crypto’s former “golden boy” might be in line for a terrible fate.
The 31-year-old man behind the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX is facing seven criminal charges with maximum sentences adding up to 110 years.
“Your client in the event of conviction could be looking at a very long sentence,” US District Judge Lewis Kaplan told SBF’s lawyers in a hearing on Thursday while denying the defense’s request for a temporary release from jail.
Once the undeniable mogul of the cryptocurrency landscape, SBF’s trial is the epitome of his fall from grace. He started FTX in 2019, and before long, the company was valued at $32 billion, becoming the cornerstone of a crypto empire. He also founded a focused hedge fund called Alameda Research, whose relationship with FTX is central to the current case.
In 2022, after the crypto market crashed and questions about FTX’s business practices were raised, everything collapsed. Billions of dollars went missing, and Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, is alleging SBF is responsible for “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history.”
SBF has pleaded not guilty to seven criminal charges, including wire fraud, securities fraud, and conspiracy to launder money. Prosecutors intend to try him on several other counts in another trial expected to get started in 2024.
Since his arrest, SBF has repeatedly spoken and written that he was an inexperienced businessman who never knowingly committed fraud. But given the sheer scale of what turned out to be an $8 billion dollar shortfall of money, it’s unknown how far that line of defense will get him.
