Moses Singer LLP partner Howard Fischer tells The Claman Countdown that both sides will “make good arguments” in the Sam Bankman-Fried case.
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried's lawyer asked on Tuesday that a judge impose a lighter sentence after his client was convicted of stealing $8 billion from customers of the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange, claiming that the customers would receive most of their funds back from FTX.
Attorney Marc Mukasey told U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in a sentencing hearing that a guideline sentence of five-and-a-half to six-and-a-half years was an appropriate prison sentence. Mukasey's proposal is well below the maximum sentence of 110 years he could face after a jury found him guilty of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy in November.
Bankman-Fried, 31, pleaded not guilty and is expected to appeal his conviction and sentence. He admitted to making mistakes in running FTX, but testified in court that he never intended to steal funds from his customers.
Kaplan is scheduled to sentence Bankman-Fried on March 28.
SAM BANKMAN-FRIED FOUND GUILTY OF SCHEDULE OF FRAUD
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried's lawyer asked on Tuesday that a judge impose a lighter sentence after his client was convicted of stealing $8 billion from customers. (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Attached to Mukasey's application were letters of support from Bankman-Fried's parents, a psychiatrist and others.
The former billionaire's parents, Stanford law professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, said their son was not interested in material wealth and worked hard at it in the period between FTX's collapse in November 2022 and his arrest on fraud charges a month later to return money to customers.
“Barbara and I … witnessed firsthand his single-minded focus on returning money to depositors long after there was any possibility that he could save his equity or assets,” Joseph Bankman wrote.
Mukasey called the 100-year benchmark set by probation officers “barbaric,” arguing that it was based in part on a flawed claim that FTX customers had lost billions.
FTX AND SAM BANKMAN-FRIED'S TRIAL: THE PLAYERS
Sam Bankman-Fried admitted to making mistakes in running FTX, but testified in court that he never intended to steal funds from his customers. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/Getty Images)
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The lawyer pointed to the company's recent claim that it expects to refund all customers in full and argued that Bankman-Fried had no intention of stealing.
“The sentencing is not about whether Sam intended to pay the money back. That’s what he did,” Mukasey wrote.
The probation officers' calculation is not binding on Kaplan and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan is expected to make its own sentencing recommendation by March 15.
Portal contributed to this report.