The former cryptocurrency tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty Thursday by a New York jury of all charges against him for fraud, embezzlement and criminal conspiracy.
The jury reached its decision after five weeks of trial, and Bankman-Fried He now faces up to 110 years in prison. The sentence will be announced on March 28, 2024.
The federal process that lasted more than a month was a tough test for Bankman-Fried after some of his closest associates testified that he was key in all the decisions that led to some US$ 8,000 million disappearing from the commercial platform of FTX.
31 years old, Bankman-Fried was until the end of last year the wonder boy of the cryptocurrency industry with an estimated fortune of 26 billion dollars, according to the magazine Fortunebefore the spectacular collapse of his empire.
In their closing arguments, prosecutors portrayed the defendant as an extremely intelligent man consumed by greed who knew what he was doing when FTX funds were secretly funneled into an investment fund under his control.
“Find him guilty“the US attorney said earlier Thursday Danielle Sassoon.
“It was ambitious” and had “the arrogance of thinking you could get away with fraud”he added.
The defense said his client had acted in “good faith” and was overcome by circumstances and the financial ineptitude of his closest associates who testified against him to obtain settlements with prosecutors.
“About 14,000 million”
The star witness in the trial was the former colleague and occasional girlfriend of Bankman-Fried, Caroline Ellisonwho told the jury they stole “about 14,000 million” from clients of the FTX cryptocurrency platform before it went bankrupt last year.
The money was used to prop up Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried’s personal hedge fund for which he had tapped Ellison as CEO.
In November 2022 the empire imploded FTX of cryptocurrencies with massive withdrawal requests from users who panicked upon learning that some FTX funds had been compromised in risky Alameda Research investments.
That money had been used to finance venture investment deals, political contributions, as well as expensive properties in the Bahamas.
They also went to pay tens of millions of dollars to celebrities, including Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen, to show their support for FTX and to buy the naming rights to the Miami Heat stadium.
Source: Gestion
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