NEW YORK (AP) — Crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in prison for a massive fraud that unraveled with the collapse of FTX, once one of the world’s most popular platforms for exchanging digital currency.
Bankman-Fried, 32, was convicted in November of fraud and conspiracy.
U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan imposed the sentence in the same Manhattan courtroom where, four months ago, Bankman-Fried testified that his intention had been to revolutionize the emerging cryptocurrency market with his innovative and altruistic ideas, not to steal.
A jury found that Bankman-Fried illegally used money from FTX depositors to cover his lavish spending, which authorities said included buying luxury properties in the Caribbean, flying on private jets, making outsized charitable donations and contributions to political candidates and paying bribes to Chinese officials.
