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The Story: Late Thursday night, after less than five hours of deliberation, a jury delivered a verdict finding FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried guilty on all seven criminal counts against him. Those charges include wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

SBF now faces a maximum sentence of over 100 years in prison after key witnesses Caroline Ellison (CEO at Alameda Research), Gary Wang (co-founder at FTX), and Nishad Singh (engineering chief at FTX) testified against Bankman-Fried. The three shared under oath that SBF pushed them to commit fraud by transferring billions of dollars of FTX customer funds to FTX’s affiliate hedge fund Alameda Research.

After the verdict was delivered, prosecuting lawyer Damian Williams announced that SBF carried out a fraud, which was:

SBF joins fellow fraudster Elizabeth Holmes, the founder and former CEO of Theranos, as defendants who took the witness stand in their own trials, but to no avail. Holmes was also found guilty, and is now serving her sentence of over eleven years in a Texas prison.

Bankman-Fried’s lawyer, Mark Cohen, says SBF will continue to fight the case against him. “We respect the jury’s decision. But we are very disappointed with the result. Mr Bankman-Fried maintains his innocence and will continue to vigorously fight the charges against him.”

SBF will be sentenced on March 28th of 2024. He plans to appeal the verdict.

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