FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty late Thursday on all seven criminal charges for his role in the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange last year. Bankman-Fried, 31, faces up to 110 years in prison with sentencing set for March 28, 2024.
Bankman-Fried Found Guilty
Jurors delivered the verdict after roughly four and a half hours of deliberations on Thursday. The defense and prosecutors presented their closing statements to the five-week trial on Wednesday.
Bankman-Fried, commonly referred to as SBF, was convicted on multiple charges of conspiracy, wire and securities fraud. He pleaded not guilty in December.
SBF testified over three days leading up to the closing arguments, including two days of cross-examination. Bankman-Fried repeated previous statements that he wasn't involved in day-to-day trading decisions at Alameda Research and could not recall many statements made in interviews or his testimony before Congress, the Wall Street Journal reported. He denied that he committed fraud but acknowledged mistakes that hurt investors. The prosecution and Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon attempted to portray his public comments and social media posts as misleading statements or outright lies.
The trial included testimony from FTX co-founder and CTO Gary Wang, director of engineering Nishad Singh and Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison. The group pleaded guilty and agreed to help prosecutors.
Ellison, Bankman-Fried's on-again, off-again girlfriend, testified that SBF knowingly ordered Alameda Research to commit crimes.
The $32 billion crypto exchange collapsed over the course of a few days in November 2022 after it was revealed FTX and its sister trading firm misused customer funds, creating a $10 billion hole in the company's balance sheet.
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