Thread by @innercitypress

OK - Sam Bankman-Fried sentencing has arrived, Inner City Press wrote the book (Crypto Criminal and will live tweet, thread below amazon.com/dp/B0CMJF66XR

Courtroom is full, Assistant US Attorneys glad-handing with people sitting in the second row. (First row behind defense table left empty; SBF will be brought in from holding cell by US Marshals). T minus six...

9:34 am - SBF's post-trial lawyers Mark Mukasey and Torrey Young are are defense table, but SBF has not yet been brought in. Meanwhile the first row has been filled in... with prosecutors.

9:39 am - OK: courtroom deputy Andy and spoken to the Marshals, and they've gone into the holding cell... Now they bring out Sam Bankman-Fried, in MDC-Brooklyn light brown jail uniform

[As SBF reads through papers at defense table, a note: some defendants ask for and get permission to wear a suit to their sentencings, even from the MDC.]
All rise!
Prosecutors are introduced, and an FBI agent.
Mukasey says Torrey Young "may" speak today

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan: Apart from the Guidelines issues, which we are going to take up next, I adopt the pre-sentence report... The Guidelines disputes have been briefed fully, to say the least. We'll start with the US contention about loss over $550 million

Mukasey: We'll rest on our papers.
AUSA Nicolas Roos: We will as well.
Judge Kaplan: So I'll rule. But first, to put it on the record, one of my new law clerks was at Wilmer Hale, which represents Caroline Ellison, but didn't work on the case.

Judge Kaplan: I reject the defense's argument about loss, both on the law and on the facts. The assertion that customers and creditors will be paid in full is misleading - defendants equate loss with dollar volume in the bankruptcy case

Judge Kaplan: Investors and lenders were also injured parties. The crimes here included taking FTX customer money to which defendant had no right and using it no speculative investments by Alameda and a variety of other things.

Judge Kaplan: A fortuitous run-up in the value of some cryptocurrencies bears no relation to the gravity of the crimes that were committed. A thief who takes his loot to Las Vegas and successfully bets is not entitled to a sentencing reduction, even if pay-back

Judge Kaplan: For the reasons well articulated by Mr. Ray, that people will be paid back is speculative. So I find the loss amount readily exceeds $550 million, the top tier. I find investors lost $1.7 billion, lenders lost $1.3 billion, and customers, $8 billion

Judge Kaplan: I'm going to vary downward from the Guidelines range, the process we're going through right now.... Next, about the number of victims. Do you want to be heard?
SBF's lawyer Mukasey: Our memo was before we saw the victim impacts letters

Judge Kaplan: So you're signaling there's not much merit to the argument you made? You don't have to answer that, I'll answer it. Objection overruled... The proposed two point adjustment for use of sophisticated means, I agree with the US. Four for leadership role

Judge Kaplan: On obstruction of justice, I find that Mr. Bankman-Fried's text to the former general counsel did in fact constitute attempted witness tampering. I make 3 perjury findings based on trial testimony

Judge Kaplan: I find the Mr. Bankman-Fried gave perjured testimony at trial - he falsely testified that until the Fall of 2022 he had no knowledge that Alameda had spent FTX customer funds. He falsely testified that he first learned of the $8 billion in Oct 2022

Judge Kaplan: Finally he falsely testified that repayment of third party loans by Alameda would require Alameda to borrow more customer funds from FTX. Now, do counsel want to address those points?
SBF's lawyer Mukasey: No I do not.

Judge Kaplan: I have limited my findings on obstruction to support the finding - there may be more. The total offense level is 60 - once you cross 43, it cannot go higher. The guideline is life in prison. But the maximum is 1320 months in this case

Judge Kaplan: Are there victims who wish to address the court? And if so, how many?
AUSA Roos: There also, in the PSR, sophisticated money laundering. And there is one victim here who wishes to speak.

Victim Sunil Kavuri: I flew in from London, so that you could here from victims. I wanted to speak to you in person, Judge Kaplan, you did a fantastic job in the trial. Many creditors feel the same. I followed the trial live
[ How : ) amazon.com/dp/B0CMJF66XR

Sunil: I'd like to address the argument that the loss was zero. They continue to claim that in the media. It is false. I have suffered for two years. The bankruptcy estate is assuming or mischaracterizing us as unsecured creditors. We had property rights

Sunil: Sullivan & Cromwell has trampled over our property rights. They have liquidated billions of dollars of crypto assets. There's a token S&C sold at 11 cents, it's now trading at two dollars. FTX had $10 billion in Solana tokens - they sold it at 70% discount

Sunil: They're selling it to their own clients - Galaxy - it is destroying customer value. This is our property. Then there's Anthropic. Our assets were used to buy the stake. It's our property. I objected, and 1000s of customers supported me.

Judge Kaplan: I appreciate your points - but I'm here to sentence Mr. Bankman-Fried. I accept your assertion the claim customers will be made whole is inaccurate.
Sunil: OK... Great... I brought it up because you ruled these are our assets. We continue to suffer

Sunl: At least three people have committed suicide because of this FTX fraud. So when this FTX bankrutcy... I guess... What I feel, how it relates to Sam, it has hurt me, other co-conspirators, aiders and abetters, need to be held accountable

Judge Kaplan: I think it would be helpful if you could bring your remarks to a close soon.
Sunil: OK, that's it.
Another: Moscowitz, yesterday in Federal court in Miami we moved for a settlement with the insiders. Sam and his team have been helpful

Judge Kaplan: Thank you. Anyone else? No? OK.. Ordinarily I enumerate on the record the various papers I have considered. I'm going to depart. As of 9 am last night, or this morning, I have gotten more than 1000 pages. 451 from the defendant, US for the same & VIS

Judge Kaplan: It was in the nature of an avalanche. I recognize Mr. Mukasey on behalf of his client.
SBF lawyer Mukasey: I don't want anything I say today as disrespect for the jury- we're going to appeal- nor to the victims, we've listened, we understand the pain

Mukasey: My team did not live through the trial but we've studied the record. The government point to James Nicholson who stole from widows. Karl Greenwood who was sentenced by Judge Ramos
[Inner City Press has a 2d Cir appeal of Greenwood's sealing of his file]

Mukasey: Madoff stole from Holocaust survivors. That is not Sam. He did not want to personally inflict pain on anyone in any way. Sam was not a ruthless financial serial killer. He wasn't predatory. He makes decisions with math in his head, not malice in his heart

Mukasey: His mom says he is misunderstood. It is easy to slot people into an old fashioned story of the greedy swindler... Sam never scurried away with money. He stayed to the end. He'll tell you more how much it means to him that people get repaid.

Mukasey: He's an awkward math nerd. He's into veganism. He has an off the chart intellect. He is a beautiful puzzle. He can parse words better than a Talmudic scholar. He was a billionaire unconcerned about material possessions

Mukasey: In middle school he was thinking about his ethical obligations to the global population. In college he spent time helping animals. On Wall Street he gave away his earning to charity. That's through age 21. Sam's devotion to others predated FTX

Mukasey: He never sought out to be the king of crypto. He just wanted to have the largest positive impact in the world. But it was not ends justify the means, that would harm the altruistic movement... How is standing by him now? Not Tom Brady or Katy Perry

Mukasey: It's the scientists that stand with him. It was not posing. Sam Bankman-Fried was committed to doing good... He's been tutoring people in the MDC. He knows what it's like to come across as unlikeable, to practice how to make eye contact in the right way

Mukasey: His mother says there's a terrific sadness at his core. His brother says, Sam would be uncomfortable giving me a hug - but I know he would give me a kidney if I needed one... He has been in the worst prison in the country for the last seven months.

Mukasey: I understand there has to be a perception that justice was done. I'm reminded of the case of Stefan Irving - he was a predatory, and got only 21 years. Don't destroy the prime of this kind young man's life. Let him meet a partner and have a baby.

Mukasey: Sentence him to work hard & give it all away. A few years ago Judge Koeltl wrote an article about Judge Weinfeld, about a white collar defendant who had spread the bread of charity on the waters, then returned. Sam has been kind- let him receive a harvest

Mukasey: We ask that you sentence him with a compassionate heart.
Judge Kaplan: Thank you. Mr. Bankman-Fried?
SBF: I appreciate what Mark said about me. I don't know that the most important thing today is my emotion life or hypothetical future kids

SBF: 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

SBF: 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

SBF: 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

SBF: 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

SBF: Alameda was in danger of falling apart. I got an anonymous message of what I should do to fix it. It was clearly from Nishad, he's famously humble. And Caroline, quite something, mostly self taught, she asked me for advice on her reviews of employees.

SBF: I read her review of a person, I learned so much. They threw themselves into it, then I threw all that away. It uh haunts me every day. I made a series of bad decision. They weren't selfish decisions. Those culminated with a bunch of other factors, crisis

SBF: 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

SBF: 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

SBF: 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

SBF: 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.

SBF: Ms Rolle in the Bahamas, a few days after the bankruptcy hack there were a hack on the estate's office. I was in the Bahamas that day. Christina Rolle came to FTX' HQ to make sure they couldn't be further depleted. It was a Saturday until 3 am

SBF: It was inspiring. There are been some who have stood up for customers. But mostly they have been failed, by more people that I can count, not least of all myself. I was the CEO of FTX, I was its leader, that means I was responsible at the end of the day

SBF: It doesn't matter why things go bad, if you're the CEO, it's on you. I'm not the one who matters the most at the end of the day... My useful life is probably over. I've long since given what I had to give. I can't do it from prison.

SBF: 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. I uh

SBF: I want to address something Sunil said. I uh uh understand what he meant, it seemed like we were denying there was pain. I can see how it would read that way. Their focus may not have been on the right place. Customers have been suffering

SBF: At the end of the day, it looks like customers will finally get paid, current value of assets. It's true for lenders and investors as well. I guess I wish I had been able to do more to help that, I think I failed at that. I'm not sure why, but I do think I did

SBF: 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?

AUSA Nicolas Roos: 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. I want to address a few of the new victim letters

AUSA Roos: They lost their life savings. A man who lives in Portugal - the day before bankruptcy his daughter was born. He was marred by the ominous specter of financial instability and his daughter's future. Then there's the 23 year old from Morocco

AUSA Roos: He is the eldest son. He kept money on FTX not to loan it out to the defendant but for family's security. One more - a couple in the later stages of their life, late 60s, they invested with life savings. They were depressed, they had to go back to work

AUSA Roos: 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

AUSA Roos: 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 committer perjury. It was pervasive

AUSA Roos: You have the defendant's cost / benefit analysis which would allow him to do it again. If Mr. Bankman Fried thought mathematics justified it, he'd do it again. Today he spoke about mismanagement, a "painful few weeks" - no acceptance of responsibility

AUSA Roos: He did not swear off doing it again. He said there is an opportunity to relaunch FTX or an equivalent. That, I submit, tells the court exactly what could happen. A sentence is necessary here of at least 40 years so he will not do it again

AUSA Roos: Mr. Mukasey says the defendant is virtuous... The defendant is not a monster but he committed gravely serious crimes that harmed many people - and he would consider doing it again. So, 40 to 50 years.
Judge Kaplan: Thank you Mr. Roos.

Judge Kaplan: 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

Judge Kaplan: 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 offputting

Judge Kaplan: He went to Jane Street, made a lot of money, have a lot of it away. There was testimony at trial, I don't remember by whom, I learned that the people at Jane Street were encouraged to play quantitative games, bets

Judge Kaplan: He had been exceptionally ambitous and aware of his talents. Ms. Ellison testified that he was very ambitious. He talked about building two huge companies and very interested in politics and wanted to use his money to have an influence on politics

Judge Kaplan: 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

Judge Kaplan: He set up a vehicle to make donation to the right, through straws that wouldn't come back to him. Some of this, at one point, might have been attributed to him have presented himself as in favor of appropriate regulation of the crypto industry

Judge Kaplan: In my judgment, that was an act. And he admitted it, ultimately. On November 15 or 16, he was interviewed by a reporter he knew well who said, You said a lot of stuff about good regulations - was that just P.R. too? He: "Yeah, f*ck regulators."

Judge Kaplan: It was power. Influence... Caroline Ellison was asked, How did the defendant describe his approach to risk? Answer: He said he was risk neutral, he was comfortable as long as positive E.V. - expected value

Judge Kaplan: A man willing to flip a coin as to the continued existence of life on earth. Mr. Bankman-Fried knew that Alameda was spending customer funds on risky investments, political contributions and Bahamas real estate. The funds were not his to use

Judge Kaplan: One of his pithier expression, I think, was "I f*cked up." Mr. Bankman-Fried has the right to plead not guilty & go to trial. Everybody's got that right and I don't hold it against him. But I come back to Ms. Ellison's testimony. He knew it was wrong

Judge Kaplan: He's not going to admit a thing. As is his right. Specific deterrence? His name is mud around the world. But he's persistent and he's a great marketing guy. Mr. Roos is right that the outlines of Sam Bankman-Fried's revised version are clear

Judge Kaplan: The same skills that had him, even after arrest, pitching his story to a huge number of media people. He had every right, we discussed that... On general deterrence, at the end of the day the criminal justice system thrives only if it's seen as fair

Judge Kaplan: People need to feel, It's fair. Or we're back to trial by combat, folks, or something like it. So punishment must fit the seriousness of the crime. And this.. Was. A. Serious. Crimes. Bear with me.

Judge Kaplan: The defendant will rise for the imposition of sentence, please.... [SBF stands, as do his 3 lawyers]
Judge Kaplan: I know the Probation Department recommends 105 years, and the Government 40 to 50 years. That would be more than necessary.

Judge Kaplan: I am not diminishing the harm. The brazenness of his actions. His exceptional flexibility with the truth. His apparent lack of any remorse. I want to add one further thought. I did not think it a fruitful use of time to spell out every lie -

Judge Kaplan: When not lying, he was evasive, hair splitting, trying to get the prosecutors to rephrase questions for him. I've been doing this job for close for 30 years. I've never seen a performance like that.

Judge Kaplan: It is the judgment of the court that you are sentenced to 240 months then consecutive 60 [etc] for a total of 300 months [25 years]

Judge Kaplan: Mr. Bankman-Fried, would you like me to read you the conditions?
SBF: No, thanks, I'm OK.
Judge Kaplan: Any other requests?
SBF lawyer Mukasey: We may submit language regarding designation [to which facility] Let me hand it up

Judge Kaplan: Anything more we can accomplish? No? Adjourned.
[Sam Bankman-Fried is lead out by US Marshals, clasping his hand behind his back as if handcuffed. But he is not handcuffed. Yet.
Vlog and story soon.
Trial book: amazon.com/dp/B0CMJF66XR