Gary Wang, a former executive of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, who testified against founder Sam Bankman-Fried, attends his sentencing on fraud charges in the United States District Court in Manhattan in New York City, USA, November 20, 2024.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Gary Wang, co-founder and ex-technology chief of FTX, was sentenced Wednesday to time served and three years of supervised release on each of the four counts indicted, becoming the fifth and final former employee of the collapsed crypto exchange. be punished. Wang was also ordered to forfeit $11 billion, the same as the other defendants.
Wang, who took the stand in the trial of his former boss Sam Bankman-Fried, faces a maximum sentence of 50 years for the four criminal counts he pleaded guilty to, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodity fraud. and conspiracy to commit securities fraud.
After former FTX engineering chief Nishad Singh successfully avoided prison time when he was sentenced by Judge Lewis Kaplan last month, Wang called for the same punishment citing his almost direct cooperation with the government.
When given the opportunity to address the court, Wang said his sincere thanks to all customers and investors in FTX.
“I took the easy way, the cowardly way, instead of doing the right thing,” Wang said in a brief address to the court, as he held up a piece of paper he never referred to from the podium.
“I will spend the rest of my life trying to fix it,” he said.
Wang’s parents, as well as his wife, who is expecting their first child, were in court to support him.
Wang’s lawyer said he did not have full visibility into the crime, unlike other cooperating witnesses, and did not know that FTX’s hedge fund, Alameda Research, was taking customer money until the scheme was implemented.
The government also asked for leniency for Wang.
Assistant US Attorney Nicolas Roos described Wang as the most cooperative witness he had ever worked with, and he credited Wang with essentially translating half the case for the Government by unraveling the complex code used by FTX that allowed customers’ money to be taken. dead exchange.
In the sentencing filing, prosecutors added that since testifying against the former CEO of FTX, Wang had “put his extraordinary computer programming skills to use to detect potential fraud in the stock market and cryptocurrencies,” and had built an interface that had been initiated by the government. to detect potential fraud by publicly traded companies.
In addition, “Wang has also been working on a tool for the detection of potential illegal activities in the cryptocurrency market, which in the event that Wang is punished for a period of time, the Government knows that he will complete it as part of active cooperation.”
Roos also noted that Wang was the first FTX employee to walk through the government’s door but the last to be punished, as FTX’s criminal proceedings had ended.
In March, Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay $11 billion — Judge Kaplan’s harshest sentence yet.
Ex-Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, who was a star witness in the prosecution of Bankman-Fried and her ex-boyfriend, was sentenced to two years in prison for her role in the crime. And Ryan Salame, another former Bankman-Fried top lieutenant, was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison in May — exceeding the upper limit recommended by prosecutors.
All former FTX executives have faced sentencing before Judge Kaplan. The no-nonsense 78-year-old judge is a veteran of the Southern District of New York and has presided over some of the biggest cases to roll through the courthouse at 500 Pearl Street in downtown Manhattan.
“I’ve never seen anything like what happened here,” Kaplan said of Wang’s cooperation. “You are entitled to a lot of credit.”
