As Sam Bankman-Fried’s sentencing approaches, letters calling for a vegan lifestyle plead for leniency.
Advocates for Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried, who is expected to be sentenced on March 28 after pleading guilty to seven felony charges, are calling for clemency for the former FTX CEO.
In letters filed March 26 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, five individuals asked Judge Lewis Kaplan to impose a lighter sentence against SBF. The letters, from people who knew Bankman-Fried personally or were affected by the FTX failure, highlighted SBF's vegan lifestyle, experience with autism, and plans to pay back beneficiaries of the exchange.
Dr. Adam Hesterberg, who was with the SBF from 2012 to 2014, argued that the former FTX CEO should get “leniency in judgment” by converting half of his family to vegetarianism or veganism. Others, who did not know the CEO personally, suggested that Judge Kaplan consider Bankman-Fried's typical “personal qualities” in and out of the courtroom.
“I can tell from experience that the brains of the people in the audience work differently,” says Maria Centerella, a mother of an autistic child. Although I have never met Sam, despite the fact that he may be an MIT grad – I firmly believe that he did not fully understand the scope of what was going on and that he had no malicious intent.
Prosecutors recommended that Banman-Fried serve 40 to 50 years for his role in misappropriating funds from FTX and Alameda Research. SBF's lawyers recommended that he serve 6.5 years in prison. The maximum possible sentence would have given Judge Kaplan the option of sentencing SBF to 110 years, but many said that outcome was unlikely.
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Bankuman-Fried's immediate family and others with similar behavioral references presented the judge in February, saying that throwing him in prison would be “tragic” and would pose a risk of physical harm in terms of his personality. Many of the letters do not describe the impact of FTX's collapse on investors who lost millions of dollars.
Autism BC director Lucas Gates said in a Feb. 28 X post, “The SBF does not deserve to be let off the hook for its crimes.” “He knew what he did was fraud and he should spend the rest of his life in prison.
The former FTX CEO has been in jail since Judge Kaplan revoked his bail in August 2023 for allegedly trying to influence or intimidate witnesses in his criminal case. In November, a jury found Banman-Fried guilty of seven counts after a month-long trial.
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