XRP Lawyer John Deaton Says SBF Deserves Harsher 50-Year Jail Term

Quite a number of observers including popular XRP lawyer John Deaton believe that Sam Bankman-Fried deserves more than the 25-year jail sentence that he just received.

Was The Court Wrong With the Jail Term Handed to SBF?

Earlier on Thursday, FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan for fraud and money laundering which led to the disappearance of $8 billion in customer funds. Considering the severity of the charges against him, seven of which he was found guilty of, SBF looked at receiving up to 110 years in jail. 

He, however, ended up with only 25 years of jail time per the earlier sentence handed down today. American journalist Charles V. Payne made an X post, citing that the SBF sentence was not enough. Reacting to Payne’s post, Deaton stated that the journalist was right about his position on the SBF sentence.

Charles is 💯 on 🎯

I’ve been both a criminal defense lawyer and a federal prosecutor during my legal career. In my opinion, SBF should’ve gotten twice that amount. If you commit fraud and steal hard-working people’s life savings, you deserve a harsher prison sentence. https://t.co/Kh3NudIoOJ

— John E Deaton (@JohnEDeaton1) March 28, 2024

For someone who has been a criminal defense lawyer and a federal prosecutor, Deaton said the SBF sentence should have been up to 50 years. He further explained that the offense committed by SBF deserves a harsher prison sentence. 

Even though SBF’s legal team had tried to get the court to sentence him to only six years imprisonment, the Department of Justice (DOJ) predicted that Bankman-Fried was going to end up with around 30 years of prison time.

Industry Reacts to The SBF Sentence

Many other stakeholders share the same sentiment with Payne and Deaton. 

Dan Held, a general partner at Asymmetric says the judgment was “Not nearly long enough given his actions, feelings around his actions, and actual damage caused.”

Variant Fund Chief Legal Officer Jake Chervinsky went ahead to compare the SBF sentence to what Ross Ulbricht got for orchestrating the Silk Road. Ulbricht is currently serving two consecutive life sentences plus 40 years in prison for his role in creating and operating the infamous darknet marketplace. SBF defrauded users of $8 billion while Silk Road processed total transactions of $1.2 billion. 

“This is not justice,” Chervinsky posted on X. 

“I just feel tremendous pain and sympathy for Ross Ulbricht,” Nic Carter, a partner at Castle Island Ventures, added.

In addition to the 25-year prison sentence, the 32-year-old man has been asked to forfeit $11 billion in personal assets.