Sam Bankman-Fried, the former head of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was found guilty of all seven criminal charges against him including securities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. The New York federal jury reached its verdict after just five hours of deliberations, in a trial that lasted over four weeks. Perhaps the turning point in the trial came when Mr. Bankman-Fried testified in his own defense. This is something that most white-collar criminal defendants generally don’t do because it is fraught with risk. Mr. Bankman-Fried faced withering cross examination from a veteran federal prosecutor, who often used his own public statements to impeach him. In the end, his gravitas was not enough to persuade the jury in his favor, and he now faces a potential sentence of decades in prison.
What is a misdemeanor?
I recently spoke with a client, who is currently on federal supervised release, after completing his prison term for a drug offense. When I asked him how things were going, he responded that he was working and generally doing well, except that he recently had to go to...
