Crypto scammer Sam Bankman-Fried addresses leniency request to Donald Trump

It was the end of one of the biggest crypto-crime cases in history: late last March, the former CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Since then, little has become known about the details of his imprisonment. However, a fellow inmate was quick to describe the former crypto poster boy as "neglected" and "emaciated."

Now the convicted crypto scammer is taking aim in an initial interview to the outside world. Speaking with the New York Sun, Sam Bankman-Fried explains, among other things, the political change in his thinking he has recently experienced. "The Biden administration was just incredibly destructive and difficult to work with, and frankly the Republican Party was much more reasonable," said the founder of crypto exchange FTX. He expressed disappointment with the Democrats.

Before the collapse of FTX, Bankman-Fried is said to have donated about US$40 million to political candidates and political action committees (PACs). He was even considered one of the Democratic Party's major donors at the time.

Some of these political donations came from stolen crypto customer funds. In total, FTX's defrauded customers allegedly lost about US$8 billion because of Sam Bankman-Fried. Compensation payments have since begun.

The parents of Sam Bankman-Fried asked new US President Donald Trump to pardon their son as early as late January. That the former CEO of FTX is suddenly discovering his Republican side could help this pardon - or at least is well-founded in this hope.

"My judge, Judge Kaplan, is one of Trump's judges in New York," the fallen crypto billionaire optimistically explained. At Polymarket, however, SBF's chances of a presidential pardon are only 3 percent.