PANews reported on January 4 that according to Blockworks, Ira Lee Sorkin, a lawyer who represented Bernie Madoff in his financial fraud case, said that former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF)'s decision to refuse to plead guilty in court may still change. This move is only SBF's "initial decision" and may change soon in the future. In addition, even if SBF does not plead guilty, it will not have a substantial impact on his sentence. It is usually very common for defendants in US criminal cases to change their initial "not guilty" requests.
Ira Lee Sorkin explained: "One of the important factors in sentencing in the United States is to assess the responsibility of the criminal. If you plead guilty at the beginning, you can get 2 points according to the rules to reduce your sentence. But because SBF faces many charges, and law enforcement agencies have access to all of SBF's transaction records, forged documents, etc., there is too much unfavorable evidence, especially Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison and Alameda and FTX co-founder Gary Wang have pleaded guilty, so it doesn't matter whether there are these 2 points or not."
It is reported that Madoff pleaded guilty in his $50 billion Ponzi scheme case and was sentenced to 150 years in prison. He eventually died in prison in April 2021. Earlier today, it was reported that SBF pleaded not guilty to federal fraud charges in a New York court.