Sam Bankman-Fried sentencing LIVE: Fraudster's parents say they are 'heartbroken' but promise to 'continue to fight for our son'

Bankman-Fried's parents, Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried, issued a statement after leaving the New York City courtroom Thursday, saying: 'We are heartbroken and will continue to fight for our son.'

The defense attorney previously said SBF would file an appeal to fight his conviction - and he reiterated this after the sentencing on Thursday.

The ex-girlfriend of the fallen FTX founder claimed that he 'directed me to commit these crimes' in the crypto titan's highly anticipated fraud trial.

Caroline Ellison, ex-girlfriend of SBF, previously testified in court against him in the hopes of receiving a lesser sentence for her own role in the fraud

Bankman-Fried's sentence is in the mid-range length for high-profile white-collar fraud cases.

The quarter-decade jail term is dwarfed by Bernie Madoff's 150 years behind bars for his $20 billion Ponzi scheme - the biggest financial fraud case in history.

Meanwhile, Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced to 11 years and three months in jail over the fraudulent blood-testing company.

'Mr Bankman-Fried, no doubt very well advised, says mistakes were made,' Judge Kaplan said.

'I think one of his pithier expressions was: "I f***ed up" - but never a word of remorse for the commission of terrible crimes.

'Mr Bankman-Fried has the right to plead not guilty…but at the end of the day, he knew it was wrong. He knew it was criminal.

'He regrets that he made a very bad bet about the likelihood of getting caught but he’s not going to admit a thing.

'There is absolutely no doubt that Mr Bankman-Fried’s name is pretty much mud around the world.

'But one of the things he is is persistent and a great marketing guy.

'Mr Roos (the prosecutor) is right that the outlines of Sam Bankman-Fried’s revised version of his story are clear to everyone as we sit here today.

'The same skills and drive that had him - even after his arrest - pitching his story to a huge number of media people demonstrates he knows how to do it and the will is there.

'The mistakes were made, other people are to blame, bankruptcy people screwed up, this lawyer had a conflict of interest - it doesn’t take much imagination to see the outlines of a campaign.

'There is a risk this man will be in a position to do something very bad in the future and it’s not a trivial risk,' the judge said.

Judge Kaplan added that the sentence served the purpose of ‘disabling him for a significant period of time’.

He reasoned that SBF's crimes were 'very serious', while slamming the ‘enormous harm that he did, the brazenness of his actions, his exceptional flexibility with the truth, and his apparent lack of any remorse’.

SBF was also ordered to forfeit more than $11billion. He was found guilty on seven charges of wire fraud and conspiracy in November 2023.

Attorney Marc Mukasey said prosecutors had pointed to ‘truly vile defendants’ like Bernie Madoff who ‘looked Holocaust survivors in the eye and took their money'.

‘These defendants are stone-cold financial assassins,' he began.

‘That level of depravity and cruelty was nowhere I saw in the testimony in this case.

'It’s nowhere in Sam’s history as a person because I don’t think it’s anywhere in Sam’s heart.

‘Sam was not a ruthless financial serial killer who set out every morning to hurt people. There was nothing predatory, rapacious or venal about his conduct.

‘Sam Bankman-Fried doesn’t make decisions with malice in his heart. He makes decisions with math in his head.'

Mukasey described SBF instead as an 'awkward math nerd' who loves 'video games and veganism'.

Bankman-Fried claimed that the collapse of FTX ‘haunts me every day’ in a rambling speech which veered between apologetic, self-pitying and defiant.

‘A lot of people feel really let down and they were very let down,' he told the court.

‘I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry about what happened at every stage. Things I should have done, things I shouldn’t have’.

But he also claimed his decisions weren't 'selfish' but 'bad', while continuing to insist that FTX customers could be paid back in full, even though that isn’t the case.

Bankman-Fried ignored his parents as he faked being in handcuffs with his hands behind his back as he entered the courtroom to learn his prison fate.

The 32-year-old FTX founder is appearing in person at the New York City federal court to be sentenced. His hair had grown out from the short trim he got during the trial, however he was clean shaven.

He entered through a side door with his hands behind his back, though he wasn't actually cuffed. Bankman-Fried at a table looking at papers, not acknowledging his parents  in the gallery.

Sunil Kavuri, a British victim of the FTX fraud, said he had flown in from London to speak on behalf of the 200 victims who had given victim impact statements to the court.

Kavuri said he's been 'living the FTX nightmare every day for almost two years, a lot of crying, sleepless nights’.

‘I have a new baby son and older and have spoken to tens of thousand of victims like myself who have had their dreams destroyed,' he said.

‘My house, the money I wanted to spend on a family home was taken away as well as my children's education’.

Kavuri said that he disputed the idea that FTX customers would get all their money back. Judge Kaplan agreed and said that would be ‘incorrect’.

‘All the creditors continue to suffer, not only monetary loss, but emotional and mental distress,' Kavuri said.

‘People are on medication, recovering, mental health issues, depression and sadly at least three people I’ve heard of have committed suicide as a result of this FTX fraud.’

Bankman-Fried avoided looking at Kavuri as he spoke.

Judge Kaplan has made three findings of 'wilful' perjury against Sam Bankman-Fried.

He also ruled that SBF's texts to the former counsel of FTX constituted 'attempted witness tampering'

'He committed perjury in relation to the claim that until the Fall of 2022 he had no knowledge Alameda had spent FTX customer deposits,' Judge Kaplan said.

‘He testified falsely that he first learned Alamada had a roughly $8bn liability to FTX in October 2022,' the judge told the court.

‘He falsely testified that he did not know repayment of third party loans to Alameda in June 20202 would require Alameda to borrow more customer funds’.

Crypto influencer Fong, who is one of the most high-profile victims of SBF's colossal FTX fraud, is among those who camped out on the street outside the Manhattan courthouse to secure a front-row seat in his sentencing hearing.

Fong posted a video of herself nine hours before the courthouse was set to open.

'I collected some trash from the streets and I'm going to try to make a makeshift bed out of this street trash.

'I'm going to try to take a nap outside of the courthouse, and goodnight to me.'

Her video was greeted with a 'fire' emoji from Twitter tsar Elon Musk.

Christopher Zoukis, an federal prisons expert, told DailyMail.com he believes Bankman-Fried will likely be sent to a West Coast jail, like FCI Herlong or Mendota.

Zoukis serves as the managing director of the Zoukis Consulting Group, a firm that, among other things, prepares soon-to-be federal inmates by educating them about life in federal prison.

The consultancy has clients in minimum security prisons, all the way up to ADX Florence in Colorado, a supermax facility housing some of the nation's most notorious criminals.

Zoukis explained that the Federal Bureau of Prisons applies a security point value to prisoners that in part determines which kind of prison they'll be housed in.

The sentence length also greatly informs where a convict will end up.

Click here for a recap of the crypto king's fall.

Lawyers representing the former crypto kingpin aired letters that urged leniency, with statements from his friends telling the story of a neurodivergent, vegan man who cares for animals.

His lawyers are pushing for a six-year jail term, saying a 100-year sentence would be 'grotesque' and 'barbaric'.

Read more here.

In mid-March, federal prosecutors called for a prison sentence of several decades.

'The sheer scale of Bankman-Fried's fraud calls for severe punishment,' the attorneys wrote.

'The amount of loss - at least $10 billion - makes this one of the largest financial frauds of all time,' they added.

'His life in recent years has been one of unmatched greed and hubris; of ambition and rationalization; and courting risk and gambling repeatedly with other people's money'.

If he is given a light sentence, prosecutors said, there is a risk that he would continue to carry out fraud.

The 32-year-old could face up to 110 years behind bars under the maximum term for stealing $8 billion from customers of the now-bankrupt FTX exchange he founded.

The hearing will mark the culmination of Bankman-Fried's downfall from an ultra-wealthy cryptocurrency entrepreneur and major political donor to U.S. authorities' biggest trophy to date in a crackdown on malfeasance in digital asset markets.

His hearing is set to start at 9.30am EDT before US DIstrict Judge Lewis Kaplan in New York City.

Follow the DailyMail.com live blog for updates on the hearing as it happens.