Convicted crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried insists he's innocent in exclusive prison interview — Transcript

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1. 0:01Former FTX crypto founder Sam
2. 0:03Bankman-Fried speaking out from prison
3. 0:05after being found guilty of one of the
4. 0:07biggest financial schemes in history.
5. 0:09Fox Business' Susan Li spoke exclusively
6. 0:11to the disgraced crypto king. She's here
7. 0:14now with more. Susan, what did he have
8. 0:15to say?
9. 0:16>> Good morning to you. Well, it's been
10. 0:17more than 3 years since the former
11. 0:19crypto billionaire was arrested for
12. 0:21fraud and money laundering. Currently
13. 0:23serving a 25-year sentence, Sam
14. 0:25Bankman-Fried said that he would welcome
15. 0:28some help from the White House.
16. 0:31>> It'd be obviously, you know, ultimately
17. 0:33up to the president, not up to me.
18. 0:36>> Now, have you had any conversations with
19. 0:38the White House or anyone connected to
20. 0:40the president at all?
21. 0:43>> I haven't myself.
22. 0:45>> But have, say, your parents or anyone
23. 0:47that you've been in contact with at all?
24. 0:50>> I can't speak for them.
25. 0:52>> I assume that you would want a pardon
26. 0:56from the White House.
27. 0:58>> Absolutely.
28. 0:59>> Now, despite the vagueness in that
29. 1:01answer, we did find a pardon
30. 1:03application. Right now, the application
31. 1:05is for a pardon after he serves his
32. 1:08prison sentence. Bankman-Fried is still
33. 1:10appealing his conviction with that
34. 1:12decision currently pending in the second
35. 1:14circuit. He still maintains that he did
36. 1:16not commit fraud.
37. 1:20>> I didn't steal user funds, either.
38. 1:22Uh and their, you know, customers have
39. 1:25been repaid now 170%
40. 1:28or so on their deposits.
41. 1:30It's one of the very few cases where
42. 1:34the platform was over-collateralized,
43. 1:37where customers were more than made
44. 1:39whole, and yet there was, you know, not
45. 1:42just a criminal investigation, but a
46. 1:44prosecution and, you know, dozens of
47. 1:46years of of sentence. I can only tell
48. 1:49you what I think.
49. 1:51Um and, you know, ultimately customers
50. 1:53have been repaid again nearly twice what
51. 1:56they had on the platform. And
52. 1:58it's a great disservice to them that it
53. 2:00has taken 3 years.
54. 2:02>> FTX liquidators do say that users were
55. 2:05repaid in full, but that was based on
56. 2:082022 prices when Bitcoin was only
57. 2:11trading at $16,000.
58. 2:13Now, one lawyer who represented victims
59. 2:15of FTX, Adam Moskowitz, told us that I
60. 2:19would not oppose granting Sam a pardon.
61. 2:22As co-lead counsel for hundreds of
62. 2:24thousands of FTX victims over the past 3
63. 2:27years, one of the first defendants to
64. 2:29offer to help out victims was Mr.
65. 2:32Bankman-Fried. Meantime, Senator Bernie
66. 2:34Moreno, who sits on the Banking
67. 2:36Committee, says the guy shouldn't be
68. 2:38pardoned. The guy should go to jail for
69. 2:40a long, long time. We asked the White
70. 2:42House for comment, and they directed us
71. 2:45back to President Trump's previous
72. 2:46statements that he was not considering a
73. 2:49pardon for Bankman-Fried.
74. 2:51>> Susan, what happened to the others that
75. 2:53were a part of this fraud, in particular
76. 2:55the girlfriend? Where is she now?
77. 2:57>> Yeah, so she got a plea deal, of course,
78. 2:59in part for her testimony and some of
79. 3:01the evidence that she provided in the
80. 3:03conviction of Sam Bankman-Fried.
81. 3:05Convicted on six counts of fraud and one
82. 3:08count of money laundering, 25 years
83. 3:09behind bars. But uh it looks like he's
84. 3:11still going to serve that sentence, and
85. 3:13legal experts that I spoken to on his
86. 3:16his pending appeal say that they're
87. 3:18pessimistic on the odds.
88. 3:20>> Yeah, yeah, no, it it was uh it was
89. 3:22something that really kind of not just
90. 3:23shook, but really kind of ruined crypto
91. 3:25in a lot of people's minds. Susan,
92. 3:27thank you for that exclusive uh
93. 3:28reporting on that.