Disgraced crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried has spoken out for the first time since being sent to prison for 25 years for fraud and money laundering.
Claiming he never thought what he was doing was ‘illegal’, Bankman-Fried, 32, spoke to local news from his jail cell.
He told ABC News: ‘I never thought that what I was doing was illegal. But I tried to hold myself to a high standard, and I certainly didn’t meet that standard.
‘I’m haunted, every day, by what was lost. I never intended to hurt anyone or take anyone’s money. But I was the CEO of FTX, I was responsible for what happened to the company, and when you’re responsible it doesn’t matter why it goes bad.
‘I’d give anything to be able to help repair even part of the damage. I’m doing what I can from prison, but it’s deeply frustrating not to be able to do more.’
The former billionaire’s cryptocurrency exchange company, FTX, went bust in 2022 with $8billion (£6.3billion) of customer funds missing.
At its peak FTX was valued at $32 billion (£26 billion), and Bankman-Fried became a business celebrity, promoting the firm and enticing millions of customers to invest.
Last November, a jury found Bankman-Fried had stolen billions of customer money ahead of FTX’s collapse in order to buy property, and make political donations and other investments.
Bankman-Fried’s first trial ended on November 2 of last year, when a jury found him guilty of all seven charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering.
Inside the prison where Bankman-Fried will spend 25 years
Bankman-Fried is jailed in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center – a far cry from his former lavish life and $35 million Bahamian mansion.
He shared the impressive 11,500-square foot property with nine people – the stunning mansion overlooked a marina and the Atlantic Ocean.
But his new digs are shared with 1,000 other prisoners – former prisoners at the Metropolitan Detention Center include R. Kelly, Ghislaine Maxwell and Martin Shkreli.
The MDC is notorious for its poor conditions.
In 2019, New York City public defenders filed a lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons, calling the conditions ‘inhumane’ after prisoners went without heat for days in the dead of winter.
Last month, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison – much shorter than the possible maximum 110-year sentence he could have received.
During sentencing, Judge Lewis Kaplan said there was a risk ‘that this man will be in a position to do something very bad in the future, and it’s not a trivial risk’.
He said Bankman-Fried had acknowledged his mistakes and said he was sorry, but ‘never a word of remorse for the commission of terrible crimes’.
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