Live Updates: Sam Bankman-Fried sentencing

Judge Kaplan said he found that the loss amount to victims of Bankman-Fried’s crimes exceeds $550 million — the high end of the range given by federal sentencing guidelines. Kaplan said he found there was a loss to investors of $1.7 billion, a loss to Alameda lenders of $1.3 billion and a loss to FTX customers of $8 billion.

In their pre-sentencing memos, SBF’s lawyers argued that there was no loss to any victims, arguing that they will be made whole in the bankruptcy process. “I reject entirely that there was no actual loss,” the judge said.

To say that FTX customers and creditors will be paid in full “is misleading, it is logically flawed, it is speculative,” Kaplan said.

Still Kaplan says he intends to give Bankman-Fried a prison term below the maximum sentencing guidelines when he ultimately hands down the 32-year-old’s sentence.

A judge is not required to adhere sentencing guidelines.

Andrew Dietderich, a lawyer involved in handling the bankruptcy estate of FTX, told a Delaware judge last month that he anticipates customers will be repaid in full.

He cautioned though that “this not as a guarantee, but as an objective.”

“There is still a great amount of work and risk between us and that result, but we believe the objective is within reach and we have a strategy to achieve it,” Dietderich said.