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The lawyers of disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried say that the prosecution’s sentence recommendations for their client are “disturbing.”
In a new letter addressed to Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, Bankman-Fried’s attorneys say that the sentence recommendation is draconian and brands the former chief executive as a “supervillain.”
“The government’s memorandum is disturbing.
With marked hostility, the memorandum distorts reality to support its precious “loss” narrative and casts Sam as a depraved super-villain; it attributes to him dark and megalomaniacal motives that fly in the face of the record; it makes apocalyptic prophecies of recidivism; and it adopts a medieval view of punishment to reach what amounts to a death-in-prison sentencing recommendation. That is not justice.”
Earlier this week, the prosecutors in the case recommended a 40-50-year sentence for Bankman-Fried, who was found guilty in October of defrauding investors and mishandling customer funds related to the multibillion-dollar collapse of crypto exchange FTX in November 2022.
The lawyers elaborate by saying that the government is choosing to ignore that FTX’s bankruptcy proceedings “will result in customers and lenders being made whole,” painting Bankman-Fried as a “monster,” and overblowing his affinity to re-offend.
The letter concludes by saying the prosecution’s intent to keep Bankman-Fried behind bars for that long simply because he could theoretically perpetrate fraud again is terrifying.
“At age 32, the government wants to break Sam Bankman-Fried. They ignore completely his condition and vulnerabilities. Instead, they urge, menacingly, that the sentence imposed must ‘disable’ him even from ‘being in a position’ where he theoretically ‘could’ perpetrate a fraud. That is a horrifying interpretation of specific deterrence.”