Guilty

The Mel Abides So, the trial of Samuel Bankman Fried has ended, and gone to the jury.

So, all we have to do now is wait for the jury to render a ver……… What?  They are already back?

That was quick.

Basically, it was go to the deliberation room, select a foreman, have everyone introduce themselves to everyone else, and mmediately voted to convict SBF on all charges, 6 fraud charges and 1 money laundering charge.

I don't think that their coffee had the chance to get cold:

Sam Bankman-Fried, the co-founder and former CEO of crypto exchange FTX and trading firm Alameda Research, has been found guilty on all seven counts related to fraud and money laundering.

………

The jury took about four hours to come to a verdict on six counts relating to fraud and one count relating to money laundering.

Bankman-Fried fell quickly from the top of the crypto totem pole after a faulty Alameda balance sheet was unveiled by CoinDesk in November 2022, which resulted in industry-wide panic and concern around FTX and its liquidity.

As the story unraveled, we learned that the problem was much, much bigger than many originally thought: The executives behind the now-bankrupt FTX and Alameda allegedly stole over $8 billion in customer funds.

In his trial, Bankman-Fried testified that he didn’t defraud FTX customers or take their funds, but that Alameda “borrowed” money from the exchange. Prosecutors argued Bankman-Fried made false promises and was responsible for the loss of billions of dollars for thousands of investors on FTX. They also argued he had many opportunities to come clean, but instead doubled down.

………

The seven charges bring a total possible sentence of 115 years in prison for the defendant.

Of course, SBF, won't get that.  That's only for poor black people who steal 14 dollars in loose change.

With time served, my guess is that he will far less time than David Coulson.

(Update) 

He has additional charges pending for campaign finance violations and bribery of foreign officials, so maybe he will get a few more years for that.

One does hope that this results in a crackdown on the cryptocurrency scam, and not the normalization of the this rigged casino (all casinos are rigged, even the legal one) as an investment.