Lawyers for FTX co-founder Gary Wang have argued that Wang should not be sentenced to jail, that he cooperated with authorities and was unaware of the extent of the exchange’s crimes.
According to a sentencing memorandum filed Wednesday, Wang said he was unaware of the misappropriation of FTX customer funds by sister company Alameda Research and learned of the fraud only after it was “well underway.”
Wang will be sentenced in a New York court on Nov. 20. Wang, whose son is due a week later on Nov. 27, and who works full-time as a software engineer with his wife, Cheryl Chen, are also working full-time. His current job includes supporting “forensic firms, criminal investigators, and judicial professionals seeking to preserve evidence faithfully,” the memo said.
“Cheryl is nine months pregnant and in the process of naturalization, but is unable to work,” Wang’s lawyers said. “Incarceration would deprive her and Gary of their soon-to-be-born son of their primary source of income.”
Wang pleaded guilty to fraud-related charges in December 2022 after FTX collapsed a month earlier. The exchange subsequently filed for bankruptcy amid a liquidity crisis and fraud allegations.
SBF and Wang have been friends since high school, meeting at a summer math camp. The memo states that Wang is also very trusting of others.
Wang’s lawyers said, “Sadly, Gary’s compassion and kindness led him to trust others to a naive level, and Bankman-Fried took advantage of this quality, as well as Gary’s deference to his judgment. Despite Gary’s undeniable talent as a programmer, he allowed himself to become one of BankmanFried’s pawns.”
Wang later testified at SBF’s trial, telling the court about the special privileges SBF secretly granted Alameda Research’s account on FTX. The lawyers also stated, “Critically, as the government admits and the evidence at trial shows, when Gary wrote the code, he had no idea that Bankman-Fried would use these features to steal customer funds. Bankman-Fried did not even notify Gary (let alone coordinate with him) before beginning to exploit these features.” (The Block)