Jury Finds Sam Bankman-Fried Guilty On Seven Charges Related To FTX

On November 2, 2023, former American entrepreneur and investor Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty on charges related to the collapse of his now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange, FTX. 

Following a short deliberation on Thursday, a jury found Bankman-Fried guilty on each of the seven criminal charges he faced including securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering, among others. 

FOX Business correspondent Kelly O’Grady told ‘The Ingraham Angle’ that the jury ”came to the verdict within 4 hours, just over 4 hours. That is never a good sign for the defendant.

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“I’ll tell you, even in the Bernie Madoff trial, they took four days to come to a verdict, the Elizabeth Holmes trial, seven days.” 

O’Grady continued: “And now what happens from here? We are expecting, of course, for the defendant to file an appeal. There is also a march trial where he faces a number of other counts and decades more in prison. Certainly the fact that he has been found guilty tonight, not looking good for that March trial.”

U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, said in a statement:”Sam Bankman-Fried perpetrated one of the biggest financial frauds in American history — a multibillion-dollar scheme designed to make him the King of Crypto — but while the cryptocurrency industry might be new and the players like Sam Bankman-Fried might be new, this kind of corruption is as old as time.

He added:”This case has always been about lying, cheating, and stealing, and we have no patience for it.”

O’Grady explained to ‘The Ingraham Angle’ that Bankman-Fried’s lack of credibility in court is what really swayed the final decision. 

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“It comes down to credibility, especially when you have witnesses, his inner circle testifying against him,” she said.  

“The jury had to ask themselves, who do you believe? Three people who are all saying we committed fraud, we pled guilty, and he told us to do it, or someone who got on the stand, an MIT grad, and said, I can’t possibly remember what happened back then. Oh, I can’t recall that. 

She concluded: “So that likely was the nail in the coffin for Sam Bankman-fried in the minds of the jurors, like I said, a verdict in roughly 4 hours. They didn’t have to have to spin on this too much.

Judge Lewis Kaplan is expected to decide Bankman-Fried’s sentence on March 28,2024.