Federal prosecutors requested a New York decide on Friday to condemn FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried to between 40 and 50 years in jail for cryptocurrency crimes they described as a “historic fraud.”

Prosecutors made the request as they submitted their presentence suggestions to a federal decide who will sentence the person who at one time dazzled the cryptocurrency world along with his promotional expertise, together with his entry to well-known individuals prepared to advertise his companies.

Bankman-Fried, 32, is scheduled to be sentenced in Manhattan federal courtroom on March 28 following his November conviction on fraud and conspiracy prices.

Prosecutors say he price clients and buyers in FTX and its associated firms at the least $10 billion from 2017 by 2022.

He was extradited to america in December 2022 from the Bahamas after his firms collapsed a month earlier. Initially permitted to stay at dwelling along with his dad and mom in Palo Alto, California, he was jailed final yr weeks earlier than his trial after Decide Lewis A. Kaplan concluded that he had tried to tamper with trial witnesses.

Of their presentence submission, prosecutors described Bankman-Fried’s crimes as “one of many largest monetary frauds in historical past, and what’s seemingly the most important fraud within the final decade.”

“The defendant victimized tens of hundreds of individuals and firms, throughout a number of continents, over a interval of a number of years. He stole cash from clients who entrusted it to him; he lied to buyers; he despatched fabricated paperwork to lenders; he pumped thousands and thousands of {dollars} in unlawful donations into our political system; and he bribed international officers. Every of those crimes is worthy of a prolonged sentence,” they wrote.

Prosecutors invoke Bankman-Fried’s political donations, bribes

They mentioned his “illegal political donations to over 300 politicians and political motion teams, amounting to in extra of $100 million, is believed to be the largest-ever marketing campaign finance offense.”

They usually mentioned his $150 million in bribes to Chinese language authorities officers was one of many single largest by a person.

“Even following FTX’s chapter and his subsequent arrest, Bankman-Fried shirked accountability, deflected blame to market occasions and different people, tried to tamper with witnesses, and lied repeatedly below oath,” prosecutors mentioned, citing his testimony at trial.

FTX’s chapter in November of 2022 solid a cloud over the complete crypto business, because the sudden collapse of different main business gamers vaporized billions in shopper wealth.

“So many individuals believed in him, he was a genius,” Natalie Tien, a former FTX worker, informed CBS Information final yr. 

Tien mentioned attending the trial of her former boss was cathartic after experiencing months of confusion and melancholy when his empire collapsed and he or she too “misplaced some huge cash.” 

Bankman-Fried’s attorneys attacked earlier sentence suggestion

Two weeks in the past, Bankman-Fried’s attorneys attacked a probation workplace suggestion that their shopper serve 100 years in jail, saying a sentence of that size can be “grotesque” and “barbaric.”

They urged the decide to condemn Bankman-Fried to only a few years behind bars after calculating federal sentencing pointers to advocate a time period of 5 to six 1/2 years in jail.

They cited their shopper’s medical circumstances, which embrace autism, in addition to his objectives to enhance the world by his now-defunct crypto trade, in accordance to the Wall Avenue Journal. 

“Sam is just not the ‘evil genius’ depicted within the media or the grasping villain described at trial,” his attorneys wrote. “Sam is a 31-year-old, first-time, nonviolent offender, who was joined within the conduct at subject by at the least 4 different culpable people, in a matter the place victims are poised to recuperate —had been all the time poised to recuperate— 100 cents on the greenback.”