How Many Years Will Sam Bankman-Fried Get In Prison, Really?
Set to be sentenced next week, disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is facing charges that carry a total maximum penalty of over 100 years in prison – but what sentence will he actually get?
In the defense’s sentencing recommendation released late last month, Bankman-Fried’s camp pushed for a maximum prison sentence of just over six years, citing his age and “genuine concern” about other people.
In their own sentencing recommendation released shortly thereafter, prosecutors argued that a six-year sentence would be “woefully inaccurate” and “send the wrong message to the defendant, to others considering committing fraud, to victims, and to society at large,” recommending a prison term of 40 to 50 years for the FTX fraudster.
“Bankman-Fried’s crimes were serious and long-running, causing billions of dollars in losses and significant harm to tens of thousands of victims financially and emotionally,” prosecutors argued. “The sheer enormity of the loss in this case, and the fact that the loss came in the form of stealing of victims’ money, puts Bankman-Fried in a category of defendants where sentences of forty years or more is appropriate.”
Former U.S. Assistant Attorney and white-collar crime expert Kevin J. O’Brien thinks neither of those sentences is likely given that the presiding judge is Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, however.
“Kaplan’s tough – and he has that reputation – but he’s not nasty,” O’Brien said in an interview with Cryptonews. “I don’t think he’s effectively going to put the guy away for the rest of his adult life. He’s going to give him an opportunity to make amends and live a meaningful life outside of prison.”
In their sentencing recommendation, the defense attempted to compare Bankman-Fried to “junk
