Former United States attorney Guy Lewis criticized on Thursday a judge’s sentencing of disgraced cryptocurrency tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried.
Bankman-Fried received a prison sentence of 25 years on Thursday after a jury found him guilty in November on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy-related charges. Lewis noted Bankman-Fried could serve far less than 25 years in prison and said the fraudster should have received a significantly longer sentence.
“I hate to be the hard-nosed prosecutor here but I am disappointed with the sentence. I’m almost shocked with the sentence,” Lewis said on Fox Business. “It is a long sentence, but when you look at the net, what he will actually do, for a multi-billion-dollar fraud, he is going to do about 15 years, maybe less, maybe a little less, about 15 years in jail. And I don’t see it. I think the sentence should’ve been way closer to the 40 or 50 that the government asked for in the case to Judge Kaplan.”
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The New York probation department’s sentence recommendation was 100 years, and prosecutors sought 40-50 years while Bankman-Fried’s lawyer had asked for a 60-78 month sentence, citing his philanthropic ventures and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), according to a February court filing.
“SBF may serve as little as 12.5 years, if he gets all of the jailhouse credit available to him,” former federal prosecutor Mitchell Epner told CNN.
Bankman-Fried co-founded and was CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which collapsed in November 2022 as it confronted accusations of mishandling billions in customer funds. Prosecutors estimated that losses resulting from Bankman-Fried’s fraud exceed $10 billion, according to CNN.
“A lot of people feel really let down, and they were very let down, and I am sorry about that,” Bankman-Fried said at the sentencing hearing, according to CNN Business. “I am sorry about what happened at every stage. And there are things I should’ve done and things I shouldn’t have.”
The fraudster gave more than $30 million overwhelmingly to back Democrat-aligned causes, and was the second-largest individual donor to them during the 2022 midterm election cycle, according to The Washington Post’s analysis of Federal Election Commission data.
