Easy targets? Singapore maids enticed by Lucky Plaza jewellers’ ‘S$0 upfront’ deals buy gold to pawn for cash; some struggle to repay debtsNEW YORK, March 21 — Sam Bankman-Fried is delusional in claiming the possibility customers of now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange may recover funds means he did not steal, his successor as CEO said on Wednesday.
Prosecutors are seeking a 40- to 50-year prison term. Defence lawyers believe a sentence should reflect a “significant” reduction below the minimum 5-1/4 years they say is called for under federal guidelines. Defence lawyer Marc Mukasey has said FTX customers would likely be made whole in the bankruptcy process, and that Bankman-Fried worked diligently after the exchange’s November 2022 collapse to recover funds. He was arrested the next month.
Prosecutors had argued that Bankman-Fried gambled with customers money out of greed, and wouldn’t admit what he did was wrong.In court filings this week, several said they would be dissatisfied being paid based on what their cryptocurrency holdings were worth when FTX imploded, because those assets would be worth more now.