John J. Ray III, the current head of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, said there was “zero” damage to customers as a result of the platform’s catastrophic collapse in 2022, while former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said there was “zero” damage to customers. Fried disputes the claims and calls them “reckless” and “false.” wednesday.
In a filing Tuesday morning, Bankman-Fried’s defense team said: opposed Prosecutors suggested a prison term of 40 to 50 years, saying “no losses were incurred” in FTX’s collapse because creditors’ claims would have been paid in full through the bankruptcy process. Bankman-Fried’s attorney previously requested a prison sentence. 63~78 months.
“I can assure the court that each of these statements is emphatically, callously and patently false,” Wray wrote Wednesday. filing. Ray added: “Our customers would never be in the same position if they had not followed Mr. Bankman-Fried and his brand of so-called ‘altruism’.” He added that the level of asset recovery is a result of: It requires the work of dedicated professionals, not Bankman-Frieds.
It is unlikely that complete asset recovery will occur.
Ray argued that Bankman-Fried’s claim that all lost value would be returned was missing an important element.
Bankman-Fried’s argument ignores the fact that victims who held bitcoin on FTX at the time of the collapse would receive a recovery value 400% lower than it is today because the distribution value was set at the petition date, Ray told the court. Nonetheless, the FTX CEO added that customer accounts were likely to be “inaccurate” due to “backdoor” borrowings by Alameda Research.
“And there are many things we have not received back, including hundreds of millions of dollars spent bribing Chinese officials, contacting or spending time with celebrities and politicians, or investments overpaid without any diligence. “Ray said.
Ray also revealed in the filing that he only had 105 BTC left on FTX when he took over, and that he owed customers close to 100,000 BTC. The missing Bitcoin assets were likely used by Bankman-Fried for personal gain, he added, citing the jury’s conclusion.
“Mr. Bankman-Fried continues to live a life of delusion,” Ray said. “The ‘business’ he left on November 11, 2022, was neither solvent nor secure. Mr. Bankman-Fried lost vast sums of money. He stole money and was duly convicted by a jury of his peers.”
Bankman-Fried was found guilty by a New York jury last year of defrauding investors at FTX and Alameda Research. Prosecutors called the case “one of the largest financial frauds in American history.”
Bankman-Fried’s sentencing is scheduled to be announced March 28.
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