Could be 100-plus years, or mere decades

A jury of twelve found FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried guilty of all seven criminal charges brought against him. The question of how long he’ll remain in prison, however, is one that Judge Lewis Kaplan will spend the next few months deliberating by himself.

The no-nonsense 78-year-old judge is a veteran of the Southern District of New York and has presided over some of the biggest cases to roll through the courthouse at 500 Pearl Street in downtown Manhattan.

Kaplan is straightforward and has no patience for pageantry in his courtroom. If a witness is deliberately avoiding a question, or an attorney is being redundant and sloppy in his cross-examination, Judge Kaplan is quick to admonish the offender and set the conversation back on course. He also has no problem calling out members of the gallery for chewing gum in his courtroom.

The judge’s lack of patience with Bankman-Fried during the defendant’s four days on the stand was obvious to anyone who was there — or who later read the transcript.

The 31-year-old graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology was a sight to behold on the stand. Under direct examination, he would sometimes rush through convoluted, repetitive and contradictory sentences.

“So I should preface this by saying I’m not a lawyer,” Bankman-Fried began one answer.

“I’m not giving a legal interpretation of this. I’m just giving, as best I can, what my memory is. And the parts of this that jibe with that, I, you know — I’m not trying to give a definitive legal ruling on what this does or doesn’t say. The — I’m not sure that I would quite answer yes to the question as you most recently phrased it. I’m going to try as best I can to give the answer that I believe, which is that the — as — at least as I remember understanding it at the time, FTX either itself or I think as actually happened, without FTX as an intermediary, customers’ fiat funds would be sent to Alameda bank accounts, FTX would retain a — effectively a debt from Alameda for those and a — in the lien section here, a lien on Alameda’s assets as security for that ongoing liability, that it would be repayable on direction from FTX in the return section here, and — and in the payment directive section.”

Later, on cross-examination, Bankman-Fried suddenly clammed up, replying with “Yup,” and “I don’t recall,” hundreds of times. After several dozen of these instances, the government often presented evidence that would either directly refute the defendant’s testimony or offer an answer to the question Bankman-Fried had dodged.

Multiple litigators told CNBC that Bankman-Fried’s combative attitude toward Assistant U.S. attorney, Danielle Sassoon, wasn’t a good look for the jury or judge either.

So now, the question of prison time goes to Judge Kaplan. The sentencing date is March 28 at 9:30 a.m. ET.