Tag: virtual currency

Case 1:22-cr-00673-LAK Document 407-3 Filed 02/27/24
Page 3 of 4
programming staff used it for a Hackathon. Sam lived in it and – paid rent for that privilege – for
six months-about half of the time he was in the Bahamas. Even when he was officially living in
the apartment, he was more likely to be found elsewhere – often sleeping on a bean bag chair in
the office. Like everything about Sam, that wasn’t an affectation. He just doesn’t care about the
creature comforts that most of us value. He is similarly uninterested in hobnobbing with the rich
and famous and generally uncomfortable with attention. He did what he thought he had to do for
the good of the company, often at some significant personal cost to himself. What FTX spent on
advertising, travel, and housing is in line with what comparable multibillion dollar companies
spend, and a small fraction of what many do spend. For anyone who knows Sam, the popular
portrayal of him as a high-rolling, celebrity-secking, CEO driven by greed is simply bizarre.
I am the son of a small businessman and told Sam what I believe my father would have told him:
take some money out for yourself and put it somewhere safe. Or buy something special, so you
can enjoy life more. Others, including senior counsel, told Sam the same thing. According to
one business journal, by 2022, Sam had a net worth of more than $20 billion. He could easily
have sold a billion dollars’ worth of stock. He wouldn’t do that, though. He wanted to leave
every penny in the business to finance its growth. He had a salary of $200,000, which was more
than enough for his personal consumption needs. He had nothing “salted away” when the crash
came.
Barbara and I stayed with Sam in the Bahamas for the month following the collapse, and
witnessed firsthand his single-minded focus on getting money back to depositors, long after there
was any possibility he would be able to save any of his equity or wealth. About a week after the
implosion, Sam and I were speaking to a prospective defense counsel. The lawyer was aghast
when Sam told him that he was spending all of his time working with the Bahamian government
to get depositors their money back. The lawyer strongly advised Sam to focus on his defense.
“Are you aware,” asked the lawyer, “that even as we speak, there is probably a room of bright,
hard-working and ambitious people somewhere whose goal is to put you in jail?”
“Yup,” answered Sam, “and that’s pretty much irrelevant to me compared to helping depositors.”
I recognize that the Sam I have described is strongly at odds with how the public sees him, and
may seem unbelievable to the readers of this letter, including this court. I could add hundreds of
other examples of his kindness and genuine and deep concern for others, but I’m not sure how
much difference they would make, and doing so would surely try the patience of readers. I will
add only that were the social costs of saying anything positive about Sam at this moment in time
not prohibitive, I am confident many others who have known him throughout his life would
describe much the same person.
I want now to return to the challenges I referred to at the start, and their implications for
sentencing. Sam has struggled throughout his life to learn and control things most of us take for
granted, such as eye contact, small talk, and responding to social cues.
There is a positive side to this struggle. Sam’s life experience has made him tolerant of
diversity in the way most of us cannot be. Sam hired employees with communication
difficulties so great that they could not otherwise get or keep another job. I remember him
3
Ex. A-2

Case 1:22-cr-00673-LAK Document 407-3 Filed 02/27/24
Page 3 of 4
programming staff used it for a Hackathon. Sam lived in it and – paid rent for that privilege – for
six months-about half of the time he was in the Bahamas. Even when he was officially living in
the apartment, he was more likely to be found elsewhere – often sleeping on a bean bag chair in
the office. Like everything about Sam, that wasn’t an affectation. He just doesn’t care about the
creature comforts that most of us value. He is similarly uninterested in hobnobbing with the rich
and famous and generally uncomfortable with attention. He did what he thought he had to do for
the good of the company, often at some significant personal cost to himself. What FTX spent on
advertising, travel, and housing is in line with what comparable multibillion dollar companies
spend, and a small fraction of what many do spend. For anyone who knows Sam, the popular
portrayal of him as a high-rolling, celebrity-secking, CEO driven by greed is simply bizarre.
I am the son of a small businessman and told Sam what I believe my father would have told him:
take some money out for yourself and put it somewhere safe. Or buy something special, so you
can enjoy life more. Others, including senior counsel, told Sam the same thing. According to
one business journal, by 2022, Sam had a net worth of more than $20 billion. He could easily
have sold a billion dollars’ worth of stock. He wouldn’t do that, though. He wanted to leave
every penny in the business to finance its growth. He had a salary of $200,000, which was more
than enough for his personal consumption needs. He had nothing “salted away” when the crash
came.
Barbara and I stayed with Sam in the Bahamas for the month following the collapse, and
witnessed firsthand his single-minded focus on getting money back to depositors, long after there
was any possibility he would be able to save any of his equity or wealth. About a week after the
implosion, Sam and I were speaking to a prospective defense counsel. The lawyer was aghast
when Sam told him that he was spending all of his time working with the Bahamian government
to get depositors their money back. The lawyer strongly advised Sam to focus on his defense.
“Are you aware,” asked the lawyer, “that even as we speak, there is probably a room of bright,
hard-working and ambitious people somewhere whose goal is to put you in jail?”
“Yup,” answered Sam, “and that’s pretty much irrelevant to me compared to helping depositors.”
I recognize that the Sam I have described is strongly at odds with how the public sees him, and
may seem unbelievable to the readers of this letter, including this court. I could add hundreds of
other examples of his kindness and genuine and deep concern for others, but I’m not sure how
much difference they would make, and doing so would surely try the patience of readers. I will
add only that were the social costs of saying anything positive about Sam at this moment in time
not prohibitive, I am confident many others who have known him throughout his life would
describe much the same person.
I want now to return to the challenges I referred to at the start, and their implications for
sentencing. Sam has struggled throughout his life to learn and control things most of us take for
granted, such as eye contact, small talk, and responding to social cues.
There is a positive side to this struggle. Sam’s life experience has made him tolerant of
diversity in the way most of us cannot be. Sam hired employees with communication
difficulties so great that they could not otherwise get or keep another job. I remember him
3
Ex. A-2