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.
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“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.”
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.
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“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.
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