During a sentence of 25 years, Sams Bankman Fried (SBF) gave his first interview, saying he’s gotten “good at faking” that he’s doing well.
After getting a 25-year jail sentence for fraud, Sam Banksman Fried remains steadfast in his assertion of innocence. As he prepared for appeal, he turned out to be trading in commodities, especially bags of rice.
Bankman Fried was kept in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in August 2023. During his first chat with Puck News, William Cohan, in an interview published on May 9, Bankman‘s mother shows her involvement in organizing this interview.
The primary diet of the ex-FTX CEO was vegan meals, which smell bad to others. After realizing this, he changed his diet and started living on beans and rice.
The latter has “become one of the currencies of the realm inside MDC.”
The co-founder of trading firm Alameda Research and alum of trading house Jane Street Capital started making jokes. They stated that the opportunities of trading in jail are even better than his previous life as a high-frequency trader.
Puck reported that the Bankman lost 25 pounds and exhibited reduced signs of puffiness, restlessness, and fatigue, with no visible bags under his eyes.
During an interview with Punk, Bankman made eye contact for a long time, which was totally against his past life. The jailed founder told Punk that Bankman adopted the jail environment and is good at faking that he is doing well.
Authorities keep Bankman-Fried with 35 other prisoners, reportedly half of whom are murderers cooperating with the government. The place where Bankman Fried stays is an open dorm-style area within the MDC; this place is especially for female prisoners.
According to the reports, he is very bored at that place because there are only 4 TVs in the hall and non-connected internet tablets, which he uses to play games.
Even with such inmates, he is not worried about his safety, but he cannot sleep well as others wake him up for the bags of rice to use for bartering.
SBF Believes He’s the Scapegoat
In the previous month, bankman-Fried (SBF) submitted a notice indicating his intention to appeal his conviction for fraud and money laundering. This action is the outcome of what his lawyers stated that he’d do following his guilty verdict in November.
He speaks to his lawyer on weekdays for almost an hour, and he has his prescribed medication, which helps him to think clearly, said Cohan.
While talking to Cohan, Bankman Fried (SBF) told him that he was set as a scapegoat for the collapse of FTX. He stated that his only mistake was to put FTX in a place “vulnerable to a bank run and the devious actions of its competitors,” and the punishment should be civil, not criminal.
According to Cohan, Bankman Fried still thinks that he is innocent and has not committed any crime. Bankman Fried thinks that he is an individual who didn‘t get a chance to negotiate with the prosecution properly.
He showed little remorse for his involvement in misusing around $8 billion of customer money.
Bankman Fries claims that the team of lawyers he handed over to his company, over-blamed him for the collapse of FTX.
According to the CEO, if he were running the company, it would not have gone bankrupt; instead, its worth would be $80 billion.
He said he should’ve tried harder to find someone else, not his ex-girlfriend, Caroline Ellison. His laywers told him it wasn’t right to manage both FTX and the trading firm together because of a conflict. But he didn’t listen to them and kept running both.
Bankman Fried plans to stay in MDC unless he files his appeal, which would come in July. Authorities may transfer him to another facility on the other side of the country, in California, near his parents.
If this occurs, it’s said to probably involve a prison bus that could take up to four months as it travels across the United States, picking up and dropping off inmates along the way.
