FTX CEO Ray Rubbishes SBF’s ‘Zero’ Harm Claims in Fiery Rebuttal

Sidhartha Shukla, Bloomberg News

(Bloomberg) -- Acting FTX CEO John J. Ray III slammed claims made by his predecessor Sam Bankman-Fried that customers of the exchange suffered “zero” harm and that no money was lost when it collapsed in November 2022.

In a letter to US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, Ray branded Bankman-Fried’s claims as “categorically, callously, and demonstrably false.”

Bankman-Fried had argued in a statement on Tuesday that US prosecutors’ attempts to send him to prison for as long as 50 years distorted reality by painting him as a “depraved super-villain.” Ray’s rebuttal primarily took aim at claims made by his legal team in a sentencing submission, in which they hoped to secure a lower sentence for the disgraced crypto mogul.

Read more: SBF Says 50-Year Sentence Only Suitable for a ‘Super Villain’

“Mr. Bankman-Fried continues to live a life of delusion. The ‘business’ he left on November 11, 2022 was neither solvent nor safe,” Ray said. “Vast sums of money were stolen by Mr. Bankman-Fried, and he was rightly convicted by a jury of his peers.”

Hearings around Bankman-Fried’s sentencing are ongoing. Prosecutors believe he should spend between 40 and 50 years behind bars, which is far less than the 100 years recommended in US criminal sentencing guidelines, but considerably more than the 6 1/2-years his lawyers have suggested.

Read more: Bankman-Fried Should Get Up to 50 Years in Prison, US Says

FTX’s coffers had largely run dry by the time Ray took over as CEO, with only 105 Bitcoin remaining on the exchange “against customer entitlements of nearly 100,000 Bitcoins,” Ray said in the letter.

A jury in Manhattan convicted Bankman-Fried in November of seven charges, including wire fraud and conspiracy. Prosecutors said he directed the transfer of FTX customer money to Alameda Research, an affiliated hedge fund, for the purpose of risky investments, political donations and expensive real estate purchases before both companies collapsed into bankruptcy in 2022.

Judge Kaplan is scheduled to sentence the 32-year-old on March 28.