Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried to be sentenced

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is scheduled for sentencing Thursday, March 28, following his November conviction by a federal jury on wire fraud and conspiracy charges. The jury found Bankman-Fried guilty of misappropriating $8 billion from FTX depositors’ funds for lavish expenditures, including Caribbean properties and private jets.

At 32, Bankman-Fried faces decades in prison after being convicted in November on seven fraud and conspiracy charges. While the maximum sentence could reach 110 years, prosecutors are seeking 40 to 50 years for his role in one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history.

“His life in recent years has been one of unmatched greed and hubris; of ambition and rationalization; and courting risk and gambling repeatedly with other people’s money,” wrote the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan.

Prosecutors accuse him of concealing embezzlement of customer funds for years. At his trial, former associates testified he used FTX customer funds to cover losses at his hedge fund, Alameda Research. Bankman-Fried denied intending to defraud anyone, claiming oversight failures but not theft.

Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas last December and extradited to the United States. He was released on a $250 million personal recognizance bond, with conditions including electronic monitoring and confinement to his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California.

His sentencing is set for 9:30 a.m. in Manhattan.