SBF was almost extorted for ‘protection' in Brooklyn jail, recalls ex-inmate
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What kind of watch did you have?’ He said, ‘I had an Apple Watch,’” Borrello recounted. “I said: ‘What kind of car were you driving?’ He said: ‘a 2020 Toyota Camry.’”
“Me and my friends go: ‘So what the fuck did you steal the money for? You wanna look at it?’”
Borello opined that Bankman-Fried “can’t go into regulator population” due to his perceived wealth — an estimated $26 billion at its peak — as others will again try to extort him.
SBF didn’t realize ‘how much trouble he was in’
Borrello recounted a conversation he had with Bankman-Fried, who was apparently of the belief that he “was not getting a lot of time.”
“He just didn’t understand how much trouble he was in,” Borrello said. “We were trying to explain to him that this is the feds, you’re accused of stealing billions of dollars [...] He just didn’t understand how screwed was until we started breaking it down to him.”
Borrello claimed Bankman-Fried was more nervous about jail than his case and believed he’d spend 20 years in prison.
“We looked at him like he was crazy. I kept trying to explain to him, you’re never going to see the outside again.”
On Nov. 2, Bankman-Fried was found guilty of seven counts of money laundering, fraud and conspiracy and faces a maximum sentence of 115 years in jail. His sentencing is scheduled for March 28 and his lawyers are expected to appeal.
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Borello also said he attempted to warn Bankman-Fried that New York Judge Lewis Kaplan, overseeing his case, is the “strictest judge in the Southern District.”
In most cases, judges go with the prosecution’s sentencing recommendation — yet to be filed in Bankman-Fried’s case — “which could be something out of this world,” said Borrello.
“I think it’s bullshit to get that much time,” he added. “There’s no reason to give the guy a hundred years. That’s just insane.”
Borrello called Bankman-Fried’s situation “a glory case” which every prosecutor wants a part of as they wish to become “judges, politicians, analysts [and] big-time federal attorneys.”
“All they care about is glory. He’s the glory case. So he’s fucked.”
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