Former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried has been returned to the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn by United States officials, following a brief stay at a transfer facility in Oklahoma. Inmate records from the Federal Bureau of Prisons as of June 4 indicated that Bankman-Fried is now being held at MDC Brooklyn after spending approximately one week at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City. Initially, there were speculations that authorities planned to transfer him to a prison in the San Francisco Bay Area near his parents’ home in California.
The reasons for Bankman-Fried’s return to New York remain unclear. His legal team had requested that he remain at MDC Brooklyn to assist with his appeal against his conviction and sentencing. U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial and sentencing, also recommended that he stay in the state.
In November 2023, Bankman-Fried was convicted by a jury on seven felony counts related to the misuse of customer funds at FTX and Alameda Research. In March, Judge Kaplan sentenced him to 25 years in prison. Bankman-Fried’s legal team filed a notice of appeal on April 11, although no specific grounds for the appeal have been disclosed as of now.
Bankman-Fried was one of the few individuals connected to the collapse of FTX and Alameda who pleaded not guilty and faced a jury trial. On May 28, Judge Kaplan sentenced Ryan Salame, former co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets based in the Bahamas, to 90 months in prison. Other former executives involved in the collapse of the exchange, namely Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang, and Nishad Singh, have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.
Shortly after his sentencing hearing, Salame made his first post on the social media platform X since November 2022. He has hinted at the possibility of publishing a memoir about his time at FTX and Alameda. In contrast, Bankman-Fried has not posted on X since January 2023 and rarely spoke to the media during his trial.
Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who was sentenced to four months in prison for violating U.S. money laundering laws, reported to the Federal Correctional Institution in Lompoc, California. Zhao has expressed his intention to “write something” during his incarceration, which is expected to end by October 2024.
Following SBF and Zhao, Alex Mashinsky, the former CEO of Celsius, will be the next prominent figure in the crypto space to face criminal charges. His criminal trial is scheduled to begin in January 2025. According to Inner City Press and X Hall of Flame, Mashinsky is expected to receive a shorter prison sentence compared to Bankman-Fried.