File image of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who was convicted of stealing from clients
| Photo Credit: Reuters
U.S. prosecutors mentioned they do not plan to conduct a second trial in opposition to Sam Bankman-Fried, who was convicted final month of stealing from clients of his now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency alternate.
In a letter filed on Friday night time in federal court docket in Manhattan, prosecutors mentioned the “strong public interest” in a immediate decision of their case in opposition to the 31-year-old former billionaire outweighed the advantages of a second trial.
Prosecutors mentioned that curiosity “weighs particularly heavily here,” on condition that Bankman-Fried’s scheduled March 28, 2024, sentencing will doubtless embrace orders of forfeiture and restitution for victims of his crimes.
Jurors on November 2 convicted Bankman-Fried on all seven fraud and conspiracy counts he confronted. Prosecutors had accused him of looting $8 billion from FTX clients out of sheer greed.
Lawyers for Bankman-Fried declined to remark.
Bankman-Fried had confronted six extra expenses that had been severed from his first trial, together with marketing campaign finance violations, conspiracy to commit bribery, and conspiracy to function an unlicensed cash transmitting enterprise.
He had been extradited in December 2022 from the Bahamas, the place FTX was based mostly, to face the seven earlier expenses.
The Bahamas has but to grant its consent for a trial on the remaining expenses, nevertheless, leaving the timetable unsure, prosecutors mentioned.
Bankman-Fried’s verdict got here practically one yr after FTX filed for chapter, erasing his once-$26 billion private fortune in one of many quickest collapses of a main participant in U.S. monetary markets.
Bankman-Fried may face many years in jail when he’s sentenced by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan.
Prosecutors mentioned a lot of the proof that might be provided at a second trial was already introduced on the first trial.
They additionally mentioned a second trial would not have an effect on how a lot time Bankman-Fried may face in jail below beneficial federal pointers, as a result of Judge Kaplan may think about all of Bankman-Fried’s conduct when sentencing him for the counts on which he was convicted.
Bankman-Fried is anticipated to attraction his conviction.
He testified at trial that he made errors operating FTX, together with by not creating a staff to supervise threat administration, however did not steal buyer funds.
Bankman-Fried additionally mentioned he thought the borrowing of cash from FTX by his crypto-focused hedge fund Alameda Research was permissible, and that he did not understand how precarious their funds had change into till shortly earlier than each collapsed.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate has been jailed since August, when Judge Kaplan revoked his bail after concluding that Bankman-Fried had doubtless tampered with potential trial witnesses.
