FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried leaves Manhattan Federal Court after a court appearance on June 15, 2023 in New York City.
Michael M Santiago | Getty Images
A jury has found Sam Bankman-Fried guilty of all seven charges against him. The former CEO of FTX faces a maximum prison sentence of 115 years.
Bankman-Fried, the 31-year-old son of two Stanford lawyers and a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had pleaded not guilty to charges including bank fraud, securities fraud and money laundering in connection with the collapse late last year of crypto exchange FTX and sister hedge fund Alameda Research.
The jury reached a snap verdict Thursday around 3:15 p.m. after receiving the case.
The trial, which began in early October, pitted testimony from former close friends and top lieutenants of Bankman-Fried against sworn statements from their former boss and ex-roommate.
The government’s key witnesses included Caroline Ellison, Bankman-Fried’s ex-girlfriend and the former head of Alameda, and FTX co-founder Gary Wang, Bankman-Fried’s childhood friend from math camp. Both pleaded guilty to multiple charges in December and cooperated as witnesses for the prosecution.
The central question for jurors to consider was whether Bankman-Fried acted with criminal intent by taking money from FTX customers and using that money to pay for real estate, venture investments, corporate sponsorships, political donations and to cover losses at Alameda. cover.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos told the court in his closing arguments Wednesday that there was “no serious dispute” that $10 billion in customer money held in FTX’s crypto exchange had gone missing. The question, he said, is whether Bankman-Fried knew that taking the money was wrong.
“The defendant schemed and lied to get money, which he spent,” Roos said.
In the absence of a successful appeal, Bankman-Fried is now awaiting sentencing. His case has been compared to that of Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of medical device company Theranos, which shut down operations in 2018.
Holmes, 39, was convicted in early 2022 of four counts of defrauding Theranos investors after testifying in her own defense. She was sentenced to more than eleven years in prison and began serving her sentence in May at a minimum security facility in Bryan, Texas.
— CNBC’s Dawn Giel contributed to this report
WATCH: Sam Bankman-Fried will testify in the fraud trial
![Sam Bankman-Fried will testify at the fraud trial in what experts consider a major gamble for the case](https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107323316-16982798321698279830-31748695981-1080pnbcnews.jpg?v=1698280105&w=750&h=422&vtcrop=y)