Disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman Fried whined that his “service life” was over before he was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday.
“At the end of the day, my useful life is probably over,” Bankman Fried said in a rambling 20-minute statement in a Manhattan courtroom before Judge Lewis Kaplan handed down her sentence. “It’s been quite a while.”
FTX founder, 32, was found guilty of stealing more than $8 million from customers.
“I’ve been giving everything I’ve got to give for a long time and I’m going to try and get out there and help right now, but I know that’s not going to happen,” he said. “You really can’t do that from prison. You can’t really help.”
Bankman Freed stood without handcuffs in tan prison clothes to deliver the meandering charges. His hands were clasped tightly around his waist and his head was mostly bowed, occasionally glancing at the judge, who described him as “unrepentant.”
He said he made “a series of bad decisions” that led to the collapse of his cryptocurrency company, FTX, but that the decisions were not “selfish” or “selfless”, just “bad”. It is said that it was.
The scammer said there were “billions of dollars more than needed” in assets available and customers “must pay in full” for the “current value of the assets.”
He also apologized to his employees who “watched me throw away everything they built.”
“I know a lot of people feel really disappointed, but they were right and I was very disappointed. I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry for what I should have done, said, and shouldn’t have done. I’ve failed everyone I care about, and I’ve failed everything I care about. ” he said.
“They threw themselves into it. And threw it all away,” he continued. “It bothers me every day.”
Judge Kaplan disagreed with Bankman Fried’s apology, saying the disgraced tech guru was “passing himself off as a good person” when it was just an “act.” ” he said.
“He did it because he wanted to be a very politically influential person in this country,” Kaplan said. “He knew it was wrong, he knew it was criminal. He regrets taking such a bad gamble on his chances of being arrested.”
The former executive was ordered to pay back $11 billion over a 25-year sentence and must forfeit any assets that could help him repay the large amount.
At its peak, this con artist’s empire was worth $40 billion and rubbed elbows with the rich and powerful.
Weeks after his platform collapsed, he was arrested and charged with using FTX users’ funds to pay off an $8 billion debt to failed hedge fund Alameda Research. And it all fell apart.
He was later convicted of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy.
Kaplan Kaplan suggested that Bankman Fried, currently held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, serve his sentence in a medium-security prison near his parents’ home in Northern California.
The Bureau of Prisons plans to decide on the impostor’s destination in the coming months.
