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Sam Bankman-Fried found guilty in FTX crypto fraud case:
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has been found guilty on all seven counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering following more than two weeks of testimony in one of the highest-profile financial crime cases in years.
The 31-year-old former cryptocurrency billionaire was convicted of two counts of wire fraud conspiracy, two counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, charges that each carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. He was also convicted of conspiracy to commit commodities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud, which each carry a five-year maximum sentence.
"Sam Bankman-Fried perpetrated one of the biggest frauds in American history, a multibillion-dollar scheme designed to make him the king of crypto," Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a news briefing following the verdict. "Here's the thing: the cryptocurrency industry might be new. The players like Sam Bankman-Fried might be new. This kind of fraud, this kind of corruption, is as old as time, and we have no patience for it."
The MIT graduate steadfastly maintained his innocence since his arrest late last year after the startling implosion of FTX, the crypto exchange he co-founded, amid an $8 billion shortfall in funds and allegations he had used customer money to prop up his struggling hedge fund, Alameda Research.
[...] Defense attorneys sought to portray Bankman-Fried as a math nerd who made poor management decisions at FTX, but who had nothing criminal in mind while building his crypto empire.
In the end, it was perhaps the hubristic display during Bankman-Fried's own testimony that bore the most weight, and did the most damage. Under the prosecution's cross-examination, Bankman-Fried said "over 140 times" that he couldn't remember a document, conversation or other key details. The government said, again and again, that was because "he was lying."
[...] It is now up to the judge, Lewis Kaplan, to determine what Bankman-Fried's sentence will be. While the charges carry a statutory minimum of 110 years, and sentencing guidelines provide a type of formula, the judge has wide-ranging discretion to rule below that guidance. However, CBS News legal analyst Rikki Klieman says if Judge Kaplan "believes the defendant was committing perjury in his courtroom, he might even go above the guidelines."
For her part, Tien, the former FTX employee, said that jail time might too harsh, wondering if Bankman-Fried could perhaps instead help the government investigate other potential crypto-trading fraud.
The next trial in the saga of the United States vs. Sam Bankman-Fried is scheduled for March, 11, 2024, when other charges that the government did not bring forward will be folded into yet another court proceeding.
This trial concludes almost one year to the day FTX stopped allowing customers to withdraw deposits, which marked the beginning of the end of the so-called crypto king's meteoric rise.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Friday November 03 2023, @04:48PM (11 children)
Until recently, SBF was yet another master of the universe the financial world told us we should look up to and strive to be more like.
The thing is, this crap keeps happening.
More and more, people featured in Forbes as up and coming end up indicted. Perhaps it's time for some more productive sector of the economy to run things. Perhaps people who actually invent things, discover things, make things, etc rather than people who just claim credit as if they did it with their own two hands.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2023, @06:27PM (2 children)
SBF *was* one of us. He is probably just one person removed from several people who frequent this site, if I had to guess. Professional student, tech guy, math major, about our age.
The problem is the system itself. This kind of scheme should not have been possible, and certainly not championed by the complicit media.
(Score: 3, Touché) by janrinok on Friday November 03 2023, @06:43PM
To the best of my knowledge, we have at least one community member who is in his late teens, and I and several others are now into our 70s. So I suppose it is a fair bet that SBF was 'about our age'.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday November 03 2023, @08:09PM
And large scale fraudster. My take is that anyone with enough obsession over money and power to commit a scam on this scale isn't interested in the zero stakes of SN.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 03 2023, @06:33PM (1 child)
"people featured in Forbes as up and coming end up indicted"
Forbes is an old fool with morals directly derived from the same period of the 1800s as his tea and opium trading family money.
As for: "... Bankman-Fried could perhaps instead help the government investigate other potential crypto-trading fraud."
I think that's almost a great idea. Let's try: Bankman-Fried will help the government investigate other potential crypto-trading fraud, from his jail cell, and earn his way to a reduced sentence with each case he supports successful prosecution of. I see a simple math-nerd formula for this: 110 year sentence for 8 billion in fraud, give him proportional credit for his assistance in future cases anywhere from 5% for giving the investigators a valuable tip of where to look up to 100% when his assistance was instrumental in obtaining a conviction. If he gets 40% credit for conviction in a 500 million fraud case, that's 200 million - out of his 8 billion he's working down, or 2.75 years off his 110 year sentence. By the time he gets credit for $8B in convictions, he should be fairly well trained as an investigative consultant and should be able to earn his living "on the outside" doing that job for $60K per year, instead of selling smoke and mirrors and living large on other people's money.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday November 03 2023, @06:45PM
Damn, now I don't know which way to moderate this - Funny or Interesting!
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday November 03 2023, @08:50PM (3 children)
Back in the day people at places like Forbes would do some actual research on the people they were writing about and breaking the news they were fraudulent would win people awards and stuff.
Now they don't have the budget for that sort of thing.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2023, @09:11PM
Eh, they're just another tabloid in the mass media cesspool.
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Friday November 03 2023, @10:33PM (1 child)
The old Forbes did deep investigative journalism and landed hard blows. Malcolm Forbes once wrote something very close to "Meyer Blinder is not 'controversial'. Meyer Blinder is a crook."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2023, @09:23PM
Pot.. Kettle... Meyer Blinder just wasn't very smart
(Score: 2, Touché) by crafoo on Friday November 03 2023, @11:50PM (1 child)
how anti-Semitic of you
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday November 06 2023, @03:06PM
Anti-idiot, isn't anti-semitic. His race had nothing to do with his lack of morals.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"