Now you can call him Sam Bankman-Fraud.
A Manhattan federal jury on Thursday convicted Sam Bankman-Fried of stealing $10 billion from users of his crypto exchange and lying to lenders and investors — capping the downfall of a former billionaire once seen as one of the crypto world’s brightest stars.
The tech mogul was found guilty on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy for his scheme to swipe money from users of his FTX exchange to pay off debt at his failed hedge fund Alameda Research and buy luxury real estate — leading to the collapse of FTX about a year ago, which leaving thousands unable to withdraw their funds.
He faces up to 110 years in prison when he is sentenced on March 28.
Bankman-Fried, 31, wearing a gray suit and purple tie, stood calmly with her hands clasped in front of her as the verdict was read in a packed Manhattan federal courtroom Thursday night.
As he was led out of the courtroom, he looked over his shoulder and gave a quick nod to his distraught parents, Stanford Law School professors Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman, who had walked to the first row of the court gallery to try to speak. with him.
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried stands as the foreman of the jury reads the verdict after in his fraud trial over the collapse of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange in federal court.REUTERS Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman, parents of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, react after the verdict is read in Bankman-Fried fraud trial.REUTERS
Bankman-Fried’s mother then put her head in her hands.
The jury, made up of nine women and three men, deliberated for just four hours before reaching its decision.
The former crypto golden boy’s conviction followed a month-long trial in which Bankman-Fried made the rare and risky choice to testify in his own defense.
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried stands with his attorney after the verdict was read in his fraud trial over the collapse of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange in federal court.REUTERS Bankman-Fried claims he did not retract business deals more than 100 times after taking the stand in his defense.REUTERS
He claimed more than 100 times over four days on the witness stand that he could not “remember” repeatedly promising that his platform was “secure” – or instructing subordinates to build secret computer code that allowed Alameda to siphon FTX client funds.
The arrogant mathematician was later confronted with a mountain of tweets, emails, congressional appearances and media interviews revealing that he had actually said dozens of things he claimed not to remember.
“He thought he could fool reporters, the public, and now you,” federal prosecutor Danielle Sassoon said in a final note to jurors Thursday morning.
The former rising crypto star was convicted of lying to customers, investors and his exchange lender FTX.REUTERS
“You know better,” Sassoon added.
Bankman-Fried testified that his company went bankrupt because of an honest ”mistake,” not a crime.
He claimed repeatedly not to “withdraw” the Alameda order – which he publicly described as “neutral market infrastructure” – having an unheard of arrangement allowing him to top up FTX funds with an almost unlimited line of credit.
Bankman-Fried attributed the fall to “negligence” in “risk management” and testified that he did not realize that his hedge fund had “borrowed” billions from his exchange until days before the explosion.
Federal prosecutors denounced these allegations — and dozens of other statements made by Bankman-Fried while running FTX — as part of a “pyramid scheme” aimed at obscuring the fallen crypto king’s role in masterminding massive fraud.
Bankman-Fried could spend decades in prison when he is finally sentenced after a jury conviction.AP
“You can’t go into a jewelry store, steal a diamond necklace and then come out and say there’s no security guard,” Sassoon said at the end of his closing statement in the case. “He knew what he was doing was wrong – that’s why he didn’t hire a risk officer.”
The feds’ star witness Caroline Ellison, who served as Alameda’s CEO and also dated Bankman-Fried, also confronted the former crypto giant in court, directly telling jurors that her ex-lover decided to pay customers digital cash.
“He ordered me to commit this crime,” Ellison said, pointing to his ex-lover sitting at the defense table.
Bankman-Fried was willing to lie and steal if he believed that doing so would benefit the “greater good” of society, Ellison told jurors in one of his most damning testimonies.
The feds’ star witness Caroline Ellison, who served as Alameda’s CEO and also dated Bankman-Fried, also faced the disgraced crypto mogul in court.REUTERS
Ellison and fellow former FTX executives Gary Wang and Nishad Singh all pleaded guilty to fraud charges and testified against their former boss, telling jurors that the arrogant mathematician directed Singh to give Alameda so-called “backdoor” access to funds customer.
“To believe the defendant’s story you have to ignore all the evidence,” prosecutor Nicolas Roos said in his closing statement this week. “You have to ignore the testimony of his partner in crime.”
A lawyer for Bankman-Fried has argued that the feds have unfairly portrayed an honest businessman as “some kind of monster” who seeks to steal from his clients.
The former crypto golden boy’s conviction follows a month-long trial that comes roughly a year after his company imploded in November 2022.FTX
Cohen also tried to cast doubt on the testimony of Ellison and other former FTX members, claiming that their stories sounded like rehearsed roles in Hollywood movies in which Bankman-Fried was cast as the “villain.”
The prosecution focused on painting Bankman-Fried as a bad guy by bringing up details like his notoriously casual wardrobe and messy hairstyle — which he swapped during the trial for a tighter suit and haircut — to distract jurors from the gaps in the case. , Cohen claimed.
“We’ll agree that there was a time when Sam was probably the worst dressed CEO in the world and probably had the worst haircut,” Cohen quipped in his closing statement. “That’s not a crime.”
Katy Perry Instagram post with Bankman-Fried.Katy Perry / Instagram now convicted
The jury also heard from victims who lost money they invested in cryptocurrencies held with FTX.
The feds’ first witness, French cocoa trader Marc-Antoine Julliard, testified that he was never able to withdraw about $100,000 of funds he had deposited in FTX after seeing ads and interviews describing Bankman-Fried as “the future face of the crypto industry.”
On the witness stand, Bankman-Fried appeared to show no emotion as she told her version of why her company folded. But he admits that the decline in his business is a significant fall from what he set out to achieve when he founded FTX in 2019.
“We thought we could build the best product on the market,” he said when his lawyer Cohen asked him why he started his company.
“Did it work out that way?” Cohen then asked him.
Bankman-Fried responded with a flat, nasal tone.
“No, it’s basically the opposite of that,” he said.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
