FTX co-founder Gary Wang asks for leniency before sentencing: report

Gary Wang, the co-founder of now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, is seeking to avoid prison time while awaiting sentencing scheduled for November 20 in Manhattan federal court.

He has asked a federal judge to consider his cooperation in the fraud trial of his friend and former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, aka SBF.

Cooperation and lesser role in fraud

According to a Bloomberg report citing his sentencing memo filed Wednesday, Wang’s attorney, Ilan Graff, argued that his client’s cooperation and relatively minor involvement in the FTX fraud scheme should lead to a non-custodial sentence.

According to the report, Graff noted that Wang’s role in the scheme was less central than that of other cooperating executives, including former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison and FTX engineering executive Nishad Singh .

“Gary was unaware of the scheme when it began, never reported its details, and unlike Bankman-Fried, Ellison and Singh, never took an affirmative step to deceive anyone.”

According to the memo, imposing prison time on Wang would create an “unwarranted sentencing disparity” between him and Singh. Ellison and Singh testified at Bankman-Fried’s trial, with the former receiving a two-year prison sentence and the latter avoiding prison entirely.

Graff also emphasized Wang’s important role as a witness, who he argued helped prosecutors secure Bankman-Fried’s conviction.

He also highlighted personal factors, such as how the former CTO has been trying to rebuild his life since the FTX fiasco. He started a new job at an imaging technology company in early 2023 and got married soon after.

Wang and his wife are expecting the birth of their first child within days of his scheduled sentencing. His lawyer described him as someone who “wants nothing more than to be a good husband and father” and continue his work with government authorities and other stakeholders to help recover funds for FTX victims and reduce the risk of future frauds.

Wang’s guilty plea and testimony

The 31-year-old pleaded guilty in 2022 to federal charges related to a scheme to defraud investors. His admission came shortly after FTX’s dramatic collapse and was part of a deal he reached with prosecutors to cooperate in the investigation.

Wang’s testimony became essential to the case against Bankman-Fried, and the former CTO took the stand in 2023 to admit his role in FTX’s operations. He confessed to the jury that he had enabled the wire fraud by modifying FTX’s code to allow Alameda Research unlimited access to client funds.

Wang and Bankman-Fried had been close friends since meeting at a math camp in their teens, and later became fraternity brothers at MIT. After a brief stint at Google, he joined SBF at Alameda Research and together they co-founded FTX in 2019.

They eventually moved to the Bahamas, where they shared a company penthouse. While Bankman-Fried handled investor relations as the public face of FTX, Wang worked quietly as chief technology officer.

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