BLOOMBERG
The US Department of Justice recommended a 36-month prison sentence for Changpeng Zhao, the former chief executive officer of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange.
The sentence “will not just send a message to Zhao but also to the world,” the DOJ wrote in a court filing on Tuesday, adding the price for violating US law “must be significant to effectively punish Zhao for his criminal acts and to deter others.”
Late last year, Binance pleaded guilty to US anti-money-laundering and sanctions violations, incurring $4.3 billion in penalties as well as having to agree to oversight from authorities. Zhao also pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program and stepped down as CEO.
A three-year sentence for Zhao, who co-founded Binance, would be double what he was previously expected to serve. In a separate filing, lawyers for Zhao argued he should receive probation instead of prison time, citing a lack of precedent for incarceration in similar cases.
More than 160 of Zhao’s friends, colleagues and investors submitted letters to the court in an effort to convince the judge to be lenient when sentencing him. In his own letter to the court, Zhao apologized for his actions and lamented having to let go of his life’s work when he stepped down from the company.
“I assumed I would be doing that for the next several decades,” he said of his time at the helm. “That life no longer exists for me. It was difficult to come to terms with that at first, but I have accepted it.”
Zhao’s case is the second major sentencing this year for a crypto executive in US courts.
