By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. prosecutors mentioned they don’t plan to conduct a second trial in opposition to Sam Bankman-Fried, who was convicted final month of stealing from clients of his now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency alternate.
In a letter filed on Friday evening in federal courtroom in Manhattan, prosecutors mentioned the “sturdy public curiosity” in a immediate decision of their case in opposition to the 31-year-old former billionaire outweighed the advantages of a second trial.
Prosecutors mentioned that curiosity “weighs notably closely right here,” on condition that Bankman-Fried’s scheduled March 28, 2024, sentencing will doubtless embrace orders of forfeiture and restitution for victims of his crimes.
Jurors on Nov. 2 convicted Bankman-Fried on all seven fraud and conspiracy counts he confronted. Prosecutors had accused him of looting $8 billion from FTX clients out of sheer greed.
Legal professionals for Bankman-Fried declined to remark.
Bankman-Fried had confronted six extra prices that had been severed from his first trial, together with marketing campaign finance violations, conspiracy to commit bribery, and conspiracy to function an unlicensed cash transmitting enterprise.
He had been extradited in December 2022 from the Bahamas, the place FTX was primarily based, to face the seven earlier prices.
The Bahamas has but to grant its consent for a trial on the remaining prices, nonetheless, leaving the timetable unsure, prosecutors mentioned.
Bankman-Fried’s verdict got here almost one yr after FTX filed for chapter, erasing his once-$26 billion private fortune in one of many quickest collapses of a serious participant in U.S. monetary markets.
Bankman-Fried might face a long time in jail when he’s sentenced by U.S. District Decide Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan.
Prosecutors mentioned a lot of the proof that could possibly be provided at a second trial was already offered on the first trial.
In addition they mentioned a second trial wouldn’t have an effect on how a lot time Bankman-Fried might face in jail below advisable federal pointers, as a result of Kaplan might take into account all of Bankman-Fried’s conduct when sentencing him for the counts on which he was convicted.
Bankman-Fried is predicted to enchantment his conviction.
He testified at trial that he made errors working FTX, together with by not making a staff to supervise danger administration, however didn’t steal buyer funds.
Bankman-Fried additionally mentioned he thought the borrowing of cash from FTX by his crypto-focused hedge fund Alameda Analysis was permissible, and that he didn’t notice how precarious their funds had change into till shortly earlier than each collapsed.
The Massachusetts Institute of Expertise graduate has been jailed since August, when Kaplan revoked his bail after concluding that Bankman-Fried had doubtless tampered with potential trial witnesses.
The case is U.S. v. Bankman-Fried, U.S. District Courtroom, Southern District of New York, No. 22-cr-00673.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Modifying by Leslie Adler)
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