A Manhattan jury found the former FTX CEO guilty on seven charges of fraud and conspiracy.
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried
Photo from Unchained archives.
Posted November 2, 2023 at 8:10 pm EST.
One-time crypto phenom Sam Bankman-Fried’s fall from grace is complete.
A Manhattan jury on Thursday found the former CEO of crypto exchange FTX guilty on all seven charges for defrauding customers of billions of dollars.
“Sam Bankman-Fried perpetrated one of the biggest financial frauds in American history, a multi-million scheme designed to make him the king of crypto,” said Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York in remarks following the verdict.
The guilty verdict came a year to the day that crypto publication CoinDesk published a story showing balance sheet irregularities at Bankman-Fried’s investment company, Alameda Research, that suggested the ties between Alameda and FTX were unusually close.
The trial took almost a month but jurors needed only a few hours to decide Bankman-Fried’s fate after Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan read through 60 pages of instructions and emphasized the need to decide if prosecutors had proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt.
The verdict was unanimous. Bankman-Fried now faces decades in jail.
This story is still developing.
