FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried should serve 40 to 50 years in prison, prosecutors say

The FTX founder faces sentencing this month as court filings allege he has shown no remorse for orchestrating one of the largest financial frauds in history.

Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud in the FTX collapse. Picture: AFP/Getty Images

US federal prosecutors have asked a judge to sentence Sam Bankman-Fried to 40 to 50 years in prison and to order him to pay a more than $US11 billion ($16.76bn) judgment.

They said in a court filing that the FTX founder victimised tens of thousands of people while orchestrating one of the largest financial frauds in history. Bankman-Fried has shown no remorse for his crimes, prosecutors said.

The MIT graduate had a privileged upbringing and a promising future but instead chose to steal from customers of the crypto exchange and deceive investors, they said.

“His life in recent years has been one of unmatched greed and hubris; of ambition and rationalisation; and courting risk and gambling repeatedly with other people’s money,” prosecutors said in their filing to the judge overseeing the case.

The sentencing is set for March 28. Mark Botnick, a spokesman for Bankman-Fried, declined to comment.

A federal jury convicted Bankman-Fried, 32, of seven fraud and conspiracy offences after a trial last fall. Three of his top lieutenants who co-operated with the government, including his ex-girlfriend, told jurors that they committed crimes at the direction of the FTX founder.

Prosecutors said Bankman-Fried stole billions of dollars from customers and lied to customers and lenders ahead of the crypto firm’s implosion.

Bankman-Fried, who took the stand in his own defence, has maintained that he is innocent. He plans to appeal.

After the trial, prosecutors told the judge they wouldn’t try Bankman-Fried on additional pending charges. They asked the judge to consider the conduct that would have been the subject of a second trial when determining an appropriate sentence.

Lawyers for Bankman-Fried told the judge earlier that a sentence of around five or six years was appropriate. Bankman-Fried’s attorneys also said the judge should take into account Bankman-Fried’s autism, which, they said, makes him particularly vulnerable in prison.

“Prison often requires inmates to follow ‘unwritten rules,’ as defined by other inmates -- rules that are often highly reliant on social and emotional communication of deference and power and often at conflict with the written rules,” his lawyers wrote.

In determining Bankman-Fried’s sentence, the presiding judge, Lewis Kaplan, will likely have to grapple with how much weight to put on the billions of dollars lost by customers and lenders. Federal sentencing guidelines place significant emphasis on the amount of financial loss, leading to suggested decadeslong sentences for some white-collar crimes.

Probation officials, who do their own calculation, had said a 100-year sentence would be appropriate. Bankman-Fried’s lawyers have said that calculation, based on a $US10-billion loss, is flawed.

Dow Jones Newswires