FTX caretaker brands Sam Bankman-Fried criminal mastermind of a 'colossal fraud' ahead of sentencing

financialpost.com:

FTX’s caretaker chief executive has branded Sam Bankman-Fried a deluded criminal who masterminded a “colossal fraud,” and accused the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange’s founder of lying about the losses incurred by former customers in an attempt to reduce his sentence.

In a fiery letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is due to pass sentence next week, John Ray said Bankman-Fried had run FTX “with hubris, arrogance, and a complete lack of respect for the basic norms of the law, which is all the more inexcusable given his privileged upbringing.”

He said the contention by the 32-year-old’s lawyers that the “harm to customers, lenders, and investors is zero” was “categorically, callously, and demonstrably false.”

Prosecutors are seeking a 40-50 year sentence for Bankman-Fried, who was convicted on seven counts of fraud and money laundering last year related to the collapse of FTX and an affiliated hedge fund, Alameda Research. His counsel have suggested their client deserves a sentence of no more than six-and-a half years in total, primarily because FTX’s victims would be repaid in full through the bankruptcy proceedings.

Ray, who once oversaw the restructuring of Enron, rubbished that claim, and said that what had been recovered had only occurred because his “very large team” had spent “over a year stewarding the estate from a metaphorical dumpster fire to …[an entity] that will return substantial value to creditors.”

He added that value “would not exist without the tens of thousands of hours that dedicated professionals have spent digging through the rubble of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s sprawling criminal enterprise to unearth every possible dollar, token or other asset that was spent on luxury homes, private jets, overpriced