NY
cnn
—
U.S. prosecutors submitted a letter to a federal court in New York on Friday saying they do not plan to proceed with a second trial against Sam Bankman-Fried. the disgraced founder of the FTX crypto exchange.
fried banker He was found guilty in November on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy related to the collapse of FTX.
Bankman-Fried would face a second trial in March on five additional charges that were separate from the original trial. A federal judge had asked prosecutors to decide by Feb. 1 whether that would proceed.
Prosecutors said Friday that most of the evidence that would be presented against Bankman-Fried was already presented in the first trial.
Bankman-Fried will be sentenced in March 2024, where he faces up to 110 years in prison.
"Given that practical reality and the strong public interest in a prompt resolution of this matter, the Government intends to proceed with sentencing on the charges of which the defendant was convicted at trial," the letter from U.S. Attorney Damian said. Williams.
The letter also said the sentence “will likely include forfeiture and restitution orders for victims of the defendant's crimes.”
A spokesman for Bankman-Fried declined to comment.
Bankman-Fried was previously extradited from the Bahamas, which has not yet consented to a trial on the remaining charges, “and the government does not have a timeline for when the Bahamas can respond to its request,” prosecutors wrote.
The FTX saga was one of the biggest white-collar crime cases in recent memory since Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme in 2009.
The Bankman-Fried trial included 15 days of testimony and approximately four and a half hours of jury deliberations.
Crypto's former golden boy was pleaded guilty of stealing billions of dollars from accounts belonging to clients of his once high-flying FTX crypto exchange. He was also convicted of defrauding lenders to FTX's sister company, hedge fund Alameda Research, which held FTX client funds in a bank account.
Bankman-Fried was also found guilty of defrauding investors in FTX and one count of money laundering.
– CNN's Allison Morrow contributed to this report.
