The fraud trial of the decade gets underway next Tuesday when a jury will be selected to hear allegations against Sam Bankman-Fried, disgraced founder of the FTX crypto exchange. In subsequent weeks, prosecutors will produce a mountain of evidence—including documents and testimony from Bankman-Fried’s own lieutenants—to make the case he looted billions of dollars of customer money for personal ends.
If the evidence holds up, Bankman-Fried will join Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff on a list of this century’s most notorious swindlers, and, like them, be sentenced to a long term in prison. Veteran lawyers interviewed by Fortune all agreed that prosecutors appear to have plenty of evidence to put him away. So why didn’t Bankman-Fried plead guilty—a step that could have shaved significant time off any sentence?
