John J. Ray III, Acting CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has strongly disputed previous CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s claims that his customers suffered no harm and no funds were lost when the exchange crashed in November 2022.
In the letter addressed to U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, Ray called Bankman-Fried’s allegations “absolutely disrespectful and patently false.”
Bankman-Fried had previously argued that US prosecutors’ attempts to imprison him for up to 50 years were a distortion of the truth and painted him as an “immoral supervillain”. Ray’s response text primarily targeted the allegations made by Bankman-Fried’s legal team in a sentencing application in which they sought a reduced sentence for SBF.
“Bankman-Fried continues to live a life of illusion. The ‘job’ he left on November 11, 2022 was neither solvable nor safe,” Ray added:
“Large sums of money were stolen by Bankman-Fried and he was rightfully convicted by a jury of his peers.”
Hearings regarding Bankman-Fried’s sentence continue. Prosecutors believe Bankman-Fried should spend between 40 and 50 years behind bars; That’s significantly less than the 100 years recommended by U.S. sentencing guidelines, but much more than the 6.5 years his lawyers recommend.
By the time Ray took over as CEO, FTX’s coffers were largely empty, leaving only 105 Bitcoins left on the exchange “for customer rights of approximately 100,000 Bitcoins,” according to Ray’s letter.
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