SBF lawyers fight back against tough 40- to 50-year sentence from Justice Department

Sam Bankman-Fried will be sentenced on March 28, 2024, before New York District Judge Lewis Kaplan.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s legal team wrote to District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Tuesday, questioning the sentencing proposed by the U.S. Department of Justice last week. The letter reveals the concerns raised by the team about the reasonableness and fairness of the verdict, highlighting their importance to the progress of the case.

U.S. prosecutors had previously proposed a prison sentence of 40 to 50 years for the former FTX CEO, but lawyers called the memo "troubling."

SBF’s lawyers shouted “This is injustice”

According to the letter filed on March 19, SBF's legal team argued that the situation painted in the memo was distorted, unfairly painted the embattled executive as a "supervillain" and exaggerated his motives. And baseless.

They also pointed out that there were problems with the extreme predictions made by the memorandum on SBF's future behavior. They believed that the proposed punishment was too harsh, almost equivalent to life imprisonment. They believed that this treatment method lacked fairness.

The government has tried to portray Sam as a greedy monster, emphasizing his ruthless lust and pursuit of personal wealth. However, this description is simple and tempting, but it is inaccurate. The word "greed" was never mentioned in any of the testimony. The government also ignored the people who had known Sam over the years and considered him a selfless act.

Lawyers further pointed out that people like SBF who have no criminal record are less likely to commit similar crimes again. They argue that the seriousness of an offense does not simply reflect the potential for re-offending.

In addition, they highlight research showing that people with higher levels of education (such as university degrees) are less likely to engage in "re-offending" behaviour, suggesting that individuals from SBF's background who were convicted of fraud and other crimes in the last year have a low risk of re-offending.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s historic fraud case

Bankman-Fried was convicted last year by a New York jury for defrauding investors in FTX and Alameda Research in November. The indictment includes two counts of wire fraud, two counts of wire fraud conspiracy, one count of securities fraud, one count of commodities fraud conspiracy and one count of money laundering conspiracy.

The defense team urged the U.S. court to consider the length of the crime from 63 to 78 months, criticizing the 100-year sentence proposed in the pre-sentencing report as extreme.

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