Former cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison last week for perpetrating one of the biggest financial frauds in history. Now he says that he’s “haunted, every day, by what was lost.”
“I never thought that what I was doing was illegal,” Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of the collapsed crypto exchange FTX, said in an email interview with ABC News from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
“But I tried to hold myself to a high standard, and I certainly didn’t meet that standard.”
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan said during sentencing last week that Bankman-Fried did not convey a word of remorse for the crimes he committed. Bankman-Friend told ABC that he is indeed sorry.
“I’ve heard and seen the despair, frustration and sense of betrayal from thousands of customers,” he said. “They deserve to be paid in full, at current price.”
“That could and should have happened in November 2022, and it could and should happen today,” he said, referring to the time of FTX’s rapid collapse. “It’s excruciating to see them waiting, day after day.”
During his statement in court before being sentenced on Thursday, Bankman-Fried said that if he or another FTX employee had remained as CEO, customers would have been “paid back a long time ago.”
He added to ABC: “There are and always have been plenty of assets to repay customers, lenders, and investors in full, at current prices or prices at the time.”
“I’m haunted, every day, by what was lost. I never intended to hurt anyone or take anyone’s money,” he told ABC. “But I was the CEO of FTX, I was responsible for what happened to the company, and when you’re responsible it doesn’t matter why it goes bad. I’d give anything to be able to help repair even part of the damage.”
“I’m doing what I can from prison,” he added, “but it’s deeply frustrating not to be able to do more.”