Austin Campbell, an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School and former chief risk officer at Paxos, has described the 25-year prison sentence handed to FTX Founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried as "a fair and just outcome." Campbell's remarks were made in a post dated March 28 on X.
"A fair and just outcome," said Campbell, according to X. "If anything, it should have been a longer sentence. FTX was a massive breach of trust and predicated on deliberate lies and misconduct. Sam was a massive fraudster who showed no remorse and destroyed lives."
According to a press release from the Department of Justice (DOJ), Bankman-Fried, aged 32, was sentenced on March 28 to not only 25 years in prison but also three years of supervised release. He was additionally ordered to pay $11 billion in forfeiture. The DOJ detailed that Bankman-Fried had defrauded FTX investors of more than $1.7 billion and Alameda Research investors - the trading firm he also founded - of over $1.3 billion. Found guilty of seven criminal charges, including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, Bankman-Fried faced severe repercussions for his actions. Attorney General Merrick Garland stated: "There are serious consequences for defrauding customers and investors."
The DOJ press release further revealed that between 2019 and 2022, Bankman-Fried orchestrated a "scheme" that involved "misappropriating billions of dollars of those customers’ funds." The funds were used for various purposes including political contributions, investments, personal use, real estate purposes and repayment of Alameda Research's loans. Bankman-Fried also repeatedly misled customers, investors, and the public about the safety of FTX deposits. FBI Director Christopher Wray added: "The FBI will aggressively investigate individuals like Samuel Bankman-Fried who engage in fraudulent schemes at the expense of the American public and our financial systems."
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York shared a statement via the DOJ outlining the severity of Bankman-Fried's actions: "Samuel Bankman-Fried orchestrated one of the largest financial frauds in history, stealing over $8 billion of his customers’ money. His deliberate and ongoing lies demonstrated a brazen disregard for customers’ expectations and disrespect for the rule of law, all so that he could secretly use his customers’ money to expand his own power and influence. The scale of his crimes is measured not just by the amount of money that was stolen, but by the extraordinary harm caused to victims, who in some cases had their life savings wiped out overnight."
Campbell's LinkedIn profile reveals that he is the founder and managing partner of Zero Knowledge Consulting. He currently serves as an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School where he teaches blockchain markets infrastructure. His previous roles include chief risk officer and head of portfolio management at Paxos, as well as head of stable value products at Global Rates Trading.
