Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty of all seven charges by a jury in his legal trial in New York after about 4 hours of deliberations.
Bankman-Fried was found guilty of two counts of wire fraud, two counts of wire fraud conspiracy, one depend of securities fraud, one depend of commodities fraud conspiracy and one depend of cash laundering conspiracy.
He will return to court docket for sentencing by New York District Judge Lewis Kaplan on March 28, 2024. Government prosecutors will suggest a sentence, however Judge Kaplan can have the ultimate say.
Bankman-Fried’s crimes every carry a most sentence of between 5 and 20 years in jail with the wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy and cash laundering conspiracy carrying a most 20-year sentence.
In a press convention exterior the court docket, New York Southern District U.S. Attorney Damian Williams known as Bankman-Fried’s crimes “a multibillion-dollar scheme designed to make him the king of crypto” and one of many largest monetary frauds in American historical past.
Bankman-Fried’s lawyer, Mark Cohen, stated in a press release: “We respect the jury’s decision. But we are very disappointed with the result. Mr. Bankman Fried maintains his innocence and will continue to vigorously fight the charges against him.”
STATEMENT FROM THE TEAM OF SAM BANKMAN-FRIED —
“We respect the jury’s choice. But we’re very disenchanted with the outcome. Mr. Bankman Fried maintains his innocence and can proceed to vigorously combat the charges in opposition to him.” pic.twitter.com/Q69w6nKB34
— Teddy Schleifer (@teddyschleifer) November 3, 2023
Other key FTX executives, together with former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, FTX co-founder Gary Wang and former FTX engineering head Nishad Singh, have all pleaded guilty to varied charges and worked with the government to testify in opposition to Bankman-Fried in the five-week trial.
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Bankman-Fried had pleaded not guilty to all charges, and through his trial, he took the stand to maintain his innocence and mark up FTX’s November 2022 collapse as “a number of big mistakes.”
He denied any wrongdoing in FTX’s relationship with Alameda and tried to distance himself from key choices.
Bankman-Fried pinned the blame on Wang for making a operate that allowed Alameda to commerce funds on FTX that it didn’t have and claimed he “wasn’t entirely sure what happened” with Alameda’s line of credit score, which ballooned to billions in the collapsing crypto market of 2022.
In his testimony, he additionally blamed Ellison for not focusing on threat administration and didn’t consider he defrauded FTX prospects by taking up $8 billion price of their funds; as an alternative, he framed it as Alameda borrowing from the change.
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Additional reporting by Ana Paula Pereira.
