In a court filing this week, the legal team of disgraced founder of the FTX exchange, Sam Bankman-Fried, referred to the 100-year sentence recommended by the jury as ‘grotesque’.
A new team of lawyers has been hired by Bankman-Fried, which Marc Mukasey leads and they will represent him at his sentencing in Manhattan on March 28th.
The legal team
Previously, Mukasey represented former US President Donald Trump and other members of the Trump Organization.
Now, only days after the new team took Bankman-Fried as a client, they have filed a sentencing memo of 121 pages and have requested that his time in prison not go beyond six and a half years.
The former CEO of the FTX crypto exchange had been found guilty of all seven charges on November 2, 2023, of conspiracy and wire fraud.
The maximum sentence for the said charges is about 110 years. The 31-year old founded the crypto empire and was ultimately held responsible for its downfall.
At its peak, the FTX empire had a value of around $32 billion. However, it ended up filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on November 11, 2022.
At the time, the company owed about $5 billion to over nine million customers and small creditors, while a sum of $3.1 billion was owed to its 50 largest creditors.
Bankman-Fried
Since the previous summer, Bankman-Fried has been incarcerated in Brooklyn at the Metropolitan Detention Center.
According to an individual familiar with the matter, the crypto mogul has shared crypto market tips with the guards and has recommended that they make investments in Solana.
He and his companies, which include Alameda Research and FTX, had also invested heavily in Solana. At their peak, their total SOL holdings had stood at 60 million.
This was about 10% of the total supply of Solana tokens in the market.
The memo
In the memo filed this week, the lawyers of Sam Bankman-Fried rebuffed the comparisons made between their client and Bernie Madoff.
The American financier netted billions of dollars over several decades and defrauded thousands of investors.
Bankman-Fried’s lawyers have argued in the memo that since the customers of the FTX exchange are expected to make a full recovery, it means that there would not be any losses in this case.
This is precisely what Sam has said since the start. At the end of January, the FTX bankruptcy estate said that customers will be repaid in full, as long as they can prove their losses.
The estate has sold off most of its crypto holdings and has managed to push up its cash reserves to $4.4 billion.
The lawyers also asserted in the memo that Bankman-Fried did not have a lavish lifestyle, even though he was a billionaire.
They said that he led a modest life and drove a basic car, even though he was a billionaire. Likewise, he did not wear expensive clothes.
They also highlighted that he made his own meals and usually ate vegan meat with some vegetables.