How long could Sam Bankman-Fried go to jail for?

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FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, once described as the โ€œgolden boyโ€ of crypto, is set to stare down a jury next week for his role in the collapse of his $32 billion crypto exchange.ย 

After a jury selection process on Oct. 3, the trial begins in earnest on Oct. 4, with Bankman-Fried staring down seven charges. If found guilty on all counts, he faces a maximum sentence of 115 years in prison.

However, the judge won’t likely go easy on him, crypto lawyers tell Cointelegraph.

In mid-November last year, Bankman-Fried suffered one of the most rapid and public reputational declines of all time, when his crypto exchange and its sister hedge fund Alameda Research collapsed and filed for bankruptcy, leaving a $10 billion hole in its wake.

Life behind bars?

Now less than a week out from the trial, Michael Kanovitz, partner at Loevy & Loevy law firm, told Cointelegraph that things donโ€™t look particularly good for Bankman-Fried.

He predicts that if the government finds him guilty of committing fraud, heโ€™s likely looking at spending the rest of his life behind bars.

โ€œIf heโ€™s found guilty, I think he will get the maximum sentence.โ€

Kanovitz explained that courts look mainly at the severity of the crime and how the defendant behaved during the judicial process when handing down a sentence.

โ€œIf the government can prove he knowingly stole billions of dollars and destroyed documents to cover it up, that pushes the sentence toward the high end of the range,โ€ he said.

Kanovitz also noted that courts reserve some discretion to be lenient during sentencing if the defendant โ€œbehaves themselfโ€ before the court. However, Kanovtiz believes Bankman-Fried hasn’t been doing that.

โ€œSBF hasnโ€™t done himself any favors here, as the court already found cause to believe that he was tampering with witnesses.โ€

โ€œThatโ€™s very bad. Also, there is not a lot of โ€˜mitigationโ€™ going the other way. He did donate to charity, but they donโ€™t give you credit for being charitable with other peopleโ€™s money,โ€ Kanovtiz said.

Slightly less resolute than Kanovitz, Jeremy Hogan, Partner at Hogan & Hogan told Cointelegraph that he predicts that while Bankman-Fried may not get the maximum sentence, heโ€™s almost certainly spending a considerable period in jail.

โ€œSBF is going to prison for quite some time. But, I donโ€™t know enough about it to get into details. Just a long time โ€” more than 10 years.โ€

Breaking down the charges

Bankman-Fried will face a total of seven fraud charges. The burden of proof is carried by the government, which must prove beyond reasonable doubt that Bankman-Fried is guilty of the charges pressed against him, including:

  1. Committing wire fraud on FTX customers
  2. Conspiring to commit wire fraud on FTX customers
  3. Committing wire fraud on Alameda Research lenders
  4. Conspiring to commit wire fraud on Alameda Research lenders
  5. Conspiring to commit securities fraud against FTX investors
  6. Conspiring to commit [commodities?] fraud against FTX customers
  7. Conspiring to commit money laundering to hide the proceeds of wire fraud on FTX customers

Of these charges, only two โ€” committing wire fraud on FTX customers and Alameda Research lenders โ€” are โ€œsubstantive,โ€ meaning that the prosecution must prove that Bankman-Fried committed them.

The remaining charges are โ€œconspiracyโ€ allegations, which mean that the prosecution will have to prove that Bankman-Fried planned to commit these crimes with at least one other person.

Kanovitz explained that government prosecutors are likely aware that they wonโ€™t be able to prove that Bankman-Fried was personally involved in every aspect of the FTX and Alameda violations, which is where the conspiracy charges come in.

However, if the prosecution can prove the conspiracy allegations, Bankman-Fried will be on the hook for the full brunt of the charges, he said.

โ€œWhatever actions others took to achieve those illegal goals, the law treats it as if Bankman-Fried had done those things himself,โ€ Kanovitz said.

SBFโ€™s likely defense

Commercial litigator Joe Carlasare argues that Bankman-Friedโ€™s lawyers are already running a โ€œdistraction and confusion playbook.โ€

โ€œThe defense will likely challenge the depiction of SBF as the central figure and instead portray him as a scapegoat, influenced by those around him who have already pleaded guilty.โ€

โ€œI suspect his lawyers will highlight the quirky and eccentric aspects of SBFโ€™s personality to depict him as easily influenced, immature, and impressionable,โ€ Carlasare added.

Similarly, Kanovtiz said that the defense will seek to wrap SBF in a cloak of incompetence and uncertainty, by claiming that the other major custodians were doing similar things to FTX and that rules governing crypto were so unclear that he couldnโ€™t knowingly violate them.

โ€œHeโ€™ll bring forward evidence that other major crypto custodians were doing essentially the same thing and so he thought it was ok, which is the legal equivalent of telling the teacher โ€˜but CZ was doing it too!โ€™”

Related:ย Sam Bankman-Friedโ€™s political donations can be surfaced in trial, rules judge

Ultimately, however, Kanovitz predicts that these defenses will fall short, regardless of whether there are shadows of truth contained within them.

โ€œHow are you going to convince a jury of regular people that a man who built a multibillion-dollar fortune for himself was merely a bumbler when it came to taking care of other peopleโ€™s money?โ€

โ€œIn that sense, heโ€™ll be a victim of his own success.โ€

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