How Sam Bankman-Fried’s Sentence Compares With Other White-Collar Cases
Two years in prison for tax and securities violations. Eleven years for deceiving investors. A 150-year sentence for the largest Ponzi scheme in history.
The country’s most notorious white-collar fraudsters — like Bernie Madoff and Elizabeth Holmes — have received a range of punishments for their crimes, from relatively short prison terms to effectively a life sentence.
On Thursday, Sam Bankman-Fried, the onetime cryptocurrency mogul, joined their ranks, receiving a 25-year sentence for fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.
Mr. Bankman-Fried was convicted of stealing $8 billion from customers of his international crypto exchange, FTX — charges that carry a maximum sentence of 110 years. In legal filings, prosecutors cited 13 examples of white-collar prosecutions that involved a loss of more than $100 million. In all but two of those cases, the defendant was sentenced to 40 years or more.
