Ex-'Crypto King' Sam Bankman-Fried gets 25 years in jail for massive fraud

Disgraced former cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried is going to be spending the next quarter of a century behind bars.

Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press reports that Judge Lewis Kaplan on Thursday hit Bankman-Fried with a 300-month prison sentence for allegedly defrauding investors in his FTX cryptocurrency exchange, which collapsed in 2022.

During the sentencing hearing, Judge Kaplan repeatedly scolded Bankman-Fried for serial dishonesty throughout his trial.

"When not lying, he was evasive, hair splitting, trying to get the prosecutors to rephrase questions for him," Kaplan said, according to Lee's reporting. "I've been doing this job for close for 30 years. I've never seen a performance like that."

Bankman-Fried was indicted shortly after FTX unexpectedly went bankrupt and led to reported billions of dollars in losses for investors.

In his initial indictment, Bankman-Fried was slapped with charges related to multiple financial crimes, including conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering and election finance violations.

In the weeks after the first indictment, prosecutors would go on to add charges, including allegations that they made more than 300 illegal political donations totaling tens of millions of dollars.