Sam Bankman-Fried has been moved to one of California’s most brutal prisons

What’s new? Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the crypto exchange FTX, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in November 2023 for a multi-billion dollar fraud involving customer assets, has been transferred to a prison in the California city of Victorville. This prison is known for its cruelty.

Material by Decrypt

What else is known? As noted by Christopher Zoukis, the managing director of Zoukis Consulting Group, which advises attorneys, defendants, and inmates, medium-security facilities such as Victorville Medium II FCI have a poor quality of life and a high risk of violence compared to lower-security prisons.

In addition, prisons on the West Coast of the United States, which is where Bankman-Fried ended up, are generally much harder to stay in because of the extent of gang affiliations.

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Zoukis’ consulting firm describes Victorville’s prison as highly politicized. Thus, inmates need to affiliate with groups formed based on commonalities such as race, ancestry, or ties to gangs outside the prison to ensure their safety.

Zoukis Consulting Group emphasizes that there is a “significant level of violence” at FCI Victorville Medium II prison. One of the company’s respondents noted that “fights are regular, and stabbings are not uncommon.”

For example, in 2013, three inmates at this prison beat another inmate to death and were convicted of second-degree murder. In 2017, one inmate was charged with attempted murder for stabbing a prison employee with a shiv. Later that year, a series of assaults on guards was reported.

The prison currently houses 1434 inmates, and they live in double, triple, and quad cells. One of the most notorious inmates is Mohamed Osman Mohamud, who was sentenced to 30 years in 2013 for attempting to detonate a car bomb at Portland’s annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony.

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Bankman-Fried still insists he is innocent and is working to appeal his conviction, though a jury unanimously found him guilty of fraud.

Already incarcerated, Bankman-Fried cited Republican support in an interview with Tucker Carlson as one of the reasons for his harsh sentence.

In his new place of incarceration, Bankman-Fried will have a digital law library at his disposal. He will also be able to practice basketball, leatherwork, art, and foosball. In addition, the prison’s educational offerings include courses on Microsoft 2010.