Live Updates: Sam Bankman Fried Sentencing ; Courtroom Scenes

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The time has come for Sam Bankman-Fried’s fate to be decided by Judge Lewis Kaplan. Will Sam go to jail for 30 years? For 7 years? Or will he be pardoned altogether like his defense team wants? Check out live updates below to see what’s going on in the courtroom as it happens:-

The courtroom was sort of empty at first, with only a few US Marshals agents as everyone awaited Sam’s dramatic entrance. Merely a few minutes later, Assistant U.S. Attorneys escorted Sam into the courtroom, wearing his light brown prison uniform.

Immediately after he took his seat, Judge Kaplan began to speak. He was pretty straightforward, getting into the Guidelines of disputes pre-sentencing and saying that he’s going to stick to them. 

Now Sam’s lawyers are once again trying to appeal to the sympathies of the court, but the strict Kaplan doesn’t look all that convinced…

He listened attentively and nodded when they were done, but responded by reminding the defense and entire court that Sam is not a victim here. The real victims are FTX investors, customers, and lenders, who altogether have lost a whopping $11 billion.

Kaplan said the defense’s argument is as hollow as a chocolate Easter bunny, and he quickly dismissed it, shaming them in fact for downplaying Sam’s heinous crimes especially in the face of victims who have shared their personal stories on how Sam literally ruined their lives. Sunil is one of those victims. And he personally came up to the court and once again shared his hollow story of how Sam’s action changed the trajectory of his life forever.

Now everyone’s quiet…

Waiting…

SBF Still Wants to Make His Case 

And then SBF speaks up…

“I don’t know that the most important thing today is my emotional life or hypothetical future kids. There are customers who, uh, I agree with most of what Sunil said, what they’ve gone through, about obviously money they didn’t think they’d use, they are deprived of the gains. They’ve been waiting for a year and a half. What matters are my colleagues at FTX. I threw away what they had built. They were let down. I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry about what happened at every stage. Things I should have done and said, thing I shouldn’t have. I care about everything too. The uh uh remember the colleagues obviously.”

Whew!

And he still has more to say.

“They followed me across the earth, across continents, working past 2 am… I remember, there are so many of them, Natalie taught herself to run a media department. She was doing 10 people’s jobs. I gave my brother who had a crazy idea, how to save lives. It looked like it was going to work. Gary sent me a message one day, a link to a crypto exchange – the whole industry rebuilt itself in the image of what Gary had made. So many things about what he built became industry standards.”

Sam is praising Carolin Ellison, the former lover who turned on him. I think we all know what this is about. 

And now he is repeating what he has already said a million times.

“Alameda wasn’t bankrupt, FTX wasn’t – Alameda’s gains were lost, it was more leveraged than it should have been. We had to liquidate to meet the run on FTX. Then shutting it down. FTX would have survived, Alameda would not have. An unpleasant few weeks.”

Nothing he is saying will mean anything to anyone. Clearly.

Repeating the Same Lines

“I made a lot of mistakes. But that’s not how the story ended. Customers weren’t paid back. FTX didn’t survive that. Yeah, customers have been given conflicting claims. That’s caused a lot of damage. They could have been paid back.”

Yeah, Sam. They could’ve.

“There are enough assets. It’s not because of a rise in the price of crypto, that hasn’t hurt, there just was enough. As Sunil said, the emotional pain. Why haven’t they been paid back? There was, to be fair, a liquidity crisis. That was in part my doing.”

This might be doing more harm than good. Did his defense give him such terrible advice? This is the worst possible time to go deep into his side of things, AGAIN. 

“This isn’t the time or place to tell the full story. A good place to start with that is the affidavit of Dan Friedberg filed in the bankruptcy court, a year ago. He probably made enemies. Moscowitz has been fighting for them in court.”

Gee, ya think?

We’re hearing that Kaplan looks more bored than angry right now.

“I can’t impact if I get 5 years or 40 years. I know how the prosecutors see me, the court, the media. I understand it. You referenced my test to the general counsel. I was trying to help – that’s not how the prosecutors saw it, the media, that’s that,” says Sam.

He makes his closing statement:-

“There is an opportunity to do what I thought I would do for the world, not what I ended up doing. If people do what they can for the world, hopefully I can see their success not just my own failures. Thank you. Judge Kaplan. Thank you. Government?”

US Attorney’s Office Chimes In

Now the Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos stands up to speak.

“Samuel Bankman-Fried stole $8 billion dollars. It was theft, from customers spread all over the world. It was a loss that impacted people significantly and caused damage. Mr. Mukasey said the defendant didn’t look his victims in the eyes. I disagree. These days people look into people’s eyes through Twitter. Now also, the defendant took $1.7 billion from investors – that alone necessitates a long sentence.”

Roos waits for the court to take in what he is saying. And then he continues:

“Some get 40 or more years for that alone. There were also the loans, two lenders went bankrupt. That too justified, on its own, a severe sentence. Also one of the largest bribes. He committed perjury. The defendant’s cost/benefit analysis which would allow him to do it again. If Mr. Bankman Fried thought mathematics justified his crimes, he’d do it again.”

Judge Kaplan Says His Mind

After a few seconds of nodding at what Roos said, Kaplan sighs and starts talking:-

“I’ve considered the guidelines and the 3553 factors. Much of what was said about the defendant’s background is undisputed. He was privileged, had loving and devoted parents, he had every advantage they could confer on him, he went to MIT. He’s extremely smart and he suffers from autism. He is a high achieving autistic person. He is capable of huge accomplishments and he has frequently a social awkwardness and a way of interacting with people that’s unusual and sometimes off putting.”

Kaplan takes a breather and continues. He acknowledged the fact that Sam went to Jane Street, made a lot of money and gave most of it away.  He added that Sam had been exceptionally ambitious and very aware of his talents. He recalled that Caroline Ellison testified that he was very ambitious. He talked about building two huge companies and was very interested in politics and wanted to use his money to have an influence on politics.

Kaplan proceeds. “He said there was a five percent chance he’d be president one day. Indeed, this was a huge financial crime. He wanted to be a hugely politically influential person in his country. It wasn’t just the left end of the spectrum.”

Kaplan Makes a Decision

Kaplan is leading up to a ruling. 

Anytime now.

The judge said SBF is a man willing to flip a coin as to the continued existence of life on earth. SBF was aware that Alameda was investing client money in dangerous ventures, making political donations, and purchasing real land in the Bahamas. The money did not belong to SBF, emphasized Kaplan.

He knew it was illegal. He knew he was committing a crime.

“Mr. Bankman-Fried has the right to plead not guilty and go to trial. Everybody’s got that right and I don’t hold it against him.”