U.S. prosecutors say they do not plan a second trial against Sam Bankman-Fried, who was convicted last month of stealing from customers of his now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
In a letter filed Friday evening in federal court in Manhattan, prosecutors said the “strong public interest” in a quick resolution of their case against the 31-year-old former billionaire outweighed the benefits of a second trial.
Prosecutors said the interest “weighs particularly heavily here” because Bankman-Fried's scheduled sentencing on March 28, 2024 will likely include orders for forfeiture and restitution to the victims of his crimes.
Jurors convicted Bankman-Fried on Nov. 2 on all seven fraud and conspiracy counts he faced. Prosecutors accused him of stealing $8 billion from FTX customers out of pure greed.
Bankman-Fried's lawyers declined to comment.
Bankman-Fried faced six additional charges that were unrelated to his first trial, including campaign finance violations, conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transfer business.
He was extradited from the Bahamas, where FTX was based, in December 2022 to face the seven previous charges.
However, the Bahamas has not yet consented to a trial on the remaining charges, leaving the timeline uncertain, prosecutors said.
Bankman-Fried's ruling came nearly a year after FTX filed for bankruptcy, wiping out his once $26 billion personal assets in one of the fastest collapses of a major participant in U.S. financial markets.
Bankman-Fried faces decades in prison if he is convicted by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan.
Prosecutors said much of the evidence that could be presented in a second trial had already been presented in the first trial.
They also said a second trial would have no impact on how long Bankman-Fried could face in prison under recommended federal guidelines because Kaplan could consider all of Bankman-Fried's conduct when sentencing him for the charges on which he is convicted became.
Bankman-Fried is expected to appeal his conviction.
He testified in court that he made mistakes in running FTX, including by not assembling a team to oversee risk management, but he did not steal customer funds.
Bankman-Fried also said that he believed it was permissible to borrow money from FTX through his cryptocurrency-focused hedge fund Alameda Research, and that he only realized how precarious his finances had become shortly before both companies collapsed.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate has been in jail since August, when Kaplan revoked his bail after concluding that Bankman-Fried had likely tampered with potential witnesses in the trial.