Sam Benkman-Fried, founder and former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX and trading company Alameda Research, who was recently sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud, has filed an appeal to challenge the verdict. This was reported by Reuters.
However, the appeal may take years to be heard. The former billionaire’s lawyers will have to convince the US District Court and possibly the US Supreme Court that Judge Lewis Kaplan made significant mistakes that deprived Benckman-Fried of his legal rights and made the trial unfair.
As a reminder, the former businessman took advantage of the cryptocurrency boom to amass a fortune of $26 billion. The FTX collapse in 2022 destroyed Sam Bankman-Fried’s fortune and reputation.
He was accused of stealing billions of dollars of FTX clients’ funds to cover the losses of the Alameda Research hedge fund. However, the former billionaire denied defrauding clients.
Last November, he was found guilty on all seven charges. Six of them were related to fraud, and one to money laundering.
Sam Bankman-Fried faced a maximum of about 110 years in prison, although prosecutors insisted on a term of 40 to 50 years. But the former businessman’s defense asked for five to six and a half years behind bars.
In the end, at the end of March this year, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan announced a sentence that provides for 25 years in prison for the former CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange. He was also ordered to pay $11 billion, which the government will be able to use to compensate the victims of the fraud.
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