FTX co-founder Zixiao “Gary” Wang was sentenced to time served plus forfeiture of assets in a US district court in New York on Nov. 20, making him the fifth and final executive sentenced over the exchange’s 2022 collapse. 

Wang pleaded guilty to fraud charges in December 2022 alongside former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison. For her part in the scheme, in which she admitted to conspiring with FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried to steal $8 billion, Ellison received a two-year sentence. 

Executive sentencing

Judge Lewis Kaplan has overseen all five cases and issued prison time in Ellison’s case as well as Bankman-Fried’s (25 years) and former FTX Digital Markets co-CEO Ryan Salame (7.5 years). 

Wang’s sentence includes time served, three years’ probation, and forfeiture of all illicitly gained assets. Kaplan’s ruling in his case matches that of former FTX engineering director Nishad Singh’s. 

Sing was given time served plus probation in an October ruling with Kaplan citing the former executive’s cooperation as a mitigating factor in the sentencing. 

Cooperative witnesses

Judge Kaplan also pointed to Wang’s cooperation as the reason for his relatively light sentence. According to a report from the New York Times, Kaplan told the courtroom that he’d “never seen anything quite like what happened here,” adding that Wang was “entitled to a lot of credit” after he pleaded guilty and committed to assisting authorities.

Wang was, again, remorseful in court:

 “I took the easy path, the cowardly path, instead of doing the right thing. I will spend the rest of my life trying to make amends.”

With sentencing complete, the next stage of the ongoing FTX criminal prosecutions process will unfold as lawyers for Bankman-Fried seek to free their client through the appeals process. 

Bankman-Fried’s legal team first filed for appeal in April, just two weeks after being sentenced. In September, they filed new paperwork seeking a retrial with a new judge under the claimed pretense that Bankman-Fried wasn’t tried fairly.

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