Just In: Sam Bankman-Fried Haunted by FTX Collapse, Emails Reveal
Highlights
- Sam Bankman-Fried, former CEO of FTX, expressed deep regret for the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange.
- In an email interview, Bankman-Fried stated he never believed his actions were illegal.
- Bankman-Fried claims the downfall of FTX and losses to stakeholders were unintentional.
FTX ex-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) has made public comments from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. The ABC News report of April 1 revealed that Bankman-Fried, who is at present serving a 25-year sentence, was extremely sorry for the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange. He spoke through email, saying, “I never thought what I had been doing was illegal.” This was after he was sentenced on March 28 by Judge Lewis Kaplan of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Bankman-Fried was found guilty of seven felony charges, which resulted in his imprisonment since August 2023. He regretted what he had done, adding, “I’m haunted, every day, by what was lost.” While admitting to errors, he argued that there was never any intended harm or fraud to FTX customers. The statements mirror the earlier comments, indicating the assumption that FTX could have been saved from bankruptcy and customers repaid.
Sam Bankman-Fried Faces 24 Years in Prison
The sentence handed down on March 28 is a crossroad in the legal chapters of FTX, which collapsed in November 2022. Judge Kaplan suggested that Sam Bankman-Fried be placed in a medium or low-level security prison in the San Francisco Bay Area. This time accounts for the time the former SBF has already spent in custody, and hence, he is expected to serve about 25 years.
This calculation does not include possible adjustments for good conduct, as Bankman-Fried’s legal team plans to appeal the decision. Though parole is not practiced in the federal system, the issue of sentence reduction from a legal perspective is still open for discussion. The unprecedented appeal emphasizes the ongoing nature of the case.
SBF Seeks Distance from Bankruptcy Blame
In the communications from the detention, Sam Bankman-Fried emphasized the intentions of his acts as a mistake rather than as malicious. He argued that the dire consequences for FTX and its stakeholders were accidental, resulting from bad choices rather than malice. This view aims to separate his intentions from the disastrous effect of FTX bankruptcy.
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