Already a subscriber?The sentencing of cryptocurrency wunderkind turned convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried to 25 years in jail along with the forfeiture of more than $US11 billion looks like a fair outcome.
The jury wasn’t swayed by the one-time billionaire’s defence that he’d fallen victim to a market downturn, largely because the evidence was so overwhelming and his defence so contradictory. His former lieutenants’ testimony was as damning as his own lack of remorse and history of statements like: “F**k regulators.”
Neither of these arguments really made much headway, thankfully. US District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan made clear that talk of FTX customers being made whole was “misleading” and “speculative,” and didn’t negate the losses that Bankman-Fried’s crimes inflicted on his victims .