Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

Kaplan says many facts are not disputed, including that SBF had "an exceptionally privileged background."

"He is extremely smart. And he suffers from autism," Kaplan said, noting his understanding of the condition. Kaplan said SBF "is capable of huge accomplishments" while noting he has "a way of interacting with people that’s unusual and sometimes off-putting."

Kaplan agreed with prosecutors' claim that Bankman-Fried "wanted to be a hugely, hugely politically influential person in this country," and that that propelled his financial crimes.

Sam Bankman-Fried's sentence of 25 years puts him at the high end for sentence length in prominent white-collar fraud cases. He faced over 100 years in prison under federal sentencing guidelines.

Ahead of him is Bernard Madoff, who was sentenced to 150 years behind bars for the $20 billion Ponzi scheme he led — the largest financial fraud in history. He died around 12 years into his sentence.

Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes, meanwhile, is serving a much shorter sentence than Bankman-Fried. Holmes was convicted on four charges of defrauding investors while running the failed blood-testing startup Theranos. She faced a maximum of 20 years in prison but was sentenced to a little over 11 years. She began serving her sentence in May of last year.

Her counterpart, Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, the former COO of Theranos and ex-boyfriend of Holmes, was sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison. He also faced up to 20 years.

After Bankman-Fried addressed the court, prosecutor Nicolas Roos offered a sobering counter-argument that FTX was "created with criminality that was pervasive throughout."

"Sam Bankman-Fried stole over $8 billion in customer money, and I emphasize stole because it was not a liquidity crisis, or an active mismanagement, or poor oversight from the top," Roos said. "It was not a bloodless financial loss on paper."

Bankman-Fried told the court he'd been pained to see FTX's customers suffer.

"It's been excruciating to watch," he said. "Customers don't deserve any of that pain."

As CEO, he was responsible for that pain, he said. But "I'm not the one that matters at the end of the day — it's the customers and employees affected that matter."

Seeming to acknowledge his looming prison sentence, he said: "My useful life is probably over. It's been over for a while now."

In a meandering statement to the court, Bankman-Fried admitted that he made "a series of bad decisions" as the CEO of FTX.

He commended his former business partners, including co-founder Gary Wang and his ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison, both of whom testified against him in trial in compliance with their plea agreements.

Together, they all "built something beautiful," Bankman-Fried said.

 "And I threw it all away," he added. "It haunts me every day."

After his lawyer spoke, Bankman-Fried addressed the court directly.

"A lot of people feel really let down, and they were very let down, and I am sorry about that." he said. "I am sorry about what happened at every stage. And there are things I should've done and things I shouldn't have."

Bankman-Fried's lawyers are trying to counter the government's narrative that the former crypto billionaire was motivated by greed and hubris.

While locked up in the Metropolitan Detention Center since August, Bankman-Fried has been tutoring fellow inmates who are pursuing their GEDs, his lawyer told the court during SBF's sentencing hearing.

Bankman-Fried's mother also noted in pre-sentencing letter to the court that he has also "helped two inmates who are facing close to a lifetime in prison for crimes they likely did not commit to find competent counsel prepared their case."

She added: "The mother of one of the inmates reached out to me about three months ago to ‘ask me to pass along her gratitude to Sam, who she said has given her son a reason to live for the first time since his arrest four years ago."

Sam Bankman-Fried's attorney Marc Mukasey told the court that "Sam was not a ruthless financial serial killer who set out every morning to hurt people." 

“His real motivations were misapprehended and misunderstood," Mukasey said. "Really he’s an awkward math nerd...He loves video games and veganism, and he’s compassionate to animals."

Mukasey added that Bankman-Fried still believes he could've fixed the problem at FTX if he'd had the time.

Kaplan also said he found that Bankman-Fried committed perjury during his trial testimony. He falsely testified that he had no knowledge that Alameda had spent FTX customer deposits before the fall of 2022, the judge said.