Disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s legal team called the 100-year sentence recommended by the jury “bizarre” in a court filing Tuesday.
Bankman-Frid has hired a new team of lawyers, led by Marc Mukasey, when she is sentenced March 28 in Manhattan. Mukasey previously represented former U.S. President Donald Trump and members of the Trump Organizations.
Now, just days after taking him on as a client, Mukasey and his team have filed a 121-page sentencing memo calling for him to receive no more than six years and six months in prison.
The 31-year-old former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX was found guilty on November 2, 2023, of all seven counts of wire fraud and conspiracy. They could face up to 110 years in prison.
He founded his own cryptocurrency empire and was ultimately responsible for its collapse. At its peak, FTX was worth more than $32 billion. But when the company filed for bankruptcy on November 11, 2022, it owed $3.1 billion to its 50 largest creditors and at least $5 billion to its 9 million customers and smaller creditors.
Bankman-Fried has been incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since last summer. said an anonymous person with knowledge of the matter. new york times Bankman-Fried shared cryptocurrency market information with the guards and encouraged them to invest in Solana.
Bankman-Fried and his company FTX and trading firm Alameda Research have invested heavily in Solana. At its peak, the former CEO and his company held more than 60 million SOLs, accounting for about 10% of the total supply.
In a memo Tuesday, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers rejected comparisons between Bankman-Fried, a one-time cryptocurrency mogul, and Bernie Madoff, the American financier who defrauded thousands of investors and made billions of dollars in profits over decades. In the memo, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers argue that because FTX customers are expected to make full recoveries, “there will be no actual loss in this case, as Sam has argued from the beginning.”
FTX Bankruptcy Foundation said in late January that it would repay the full amount to customers who can prove their losses in court. After selling more cryptocurrency assets, the estate increased its cash reserves to $4.4 billion.
The lawyers argued in the memo that Bankman-Fried did not live a lavish lifestyle despite being a billionaire.
“Sam has always lived a very frugal life. Despite being a billionaire, he drove the most basic cars. He wore shabby T-shirts and shorts,” they wrote. “He cooked most of his own meals, usually fried vegan meat with vegetables.”