Jurors took only a half-day of deliberations today to find former FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried guilty of seven counts of fraud in a scheme that cost customers an estimated $10 billion to $14 billion.
His crypto exchange, FTX, collapsed into bankruptcy last year. He now faces a March 28 sentencing date that could result in decades of prison time.
The 2009 prosecution of Bernard Madoff, whose Ponzi scheme bilked about $20 billion. resulted in a sentence of 150 years in prison.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams told reporters after the verdict that Bankman-Fried “perpetrated one of the biggest financial frauds in American history, a multibillion dollar scheme designed to make him the king of crypto.. “But here’s the thing: The cryptocurrency industry might be new.
Read more on deadline.com