Former FTX execs Nishad Singh and Gary Wang will face sentencing later this year

FTX co-founder Gary Wang and FTX's former Engineering Director Nishad Singh will be sentenced later this year after testifying against their former colleague Sam Bankman-Fried.

Singh will be sentenced on October 30 in a New York courtroom, while Wang will face sentencing on November 20, according to the court docket. Both former FTX executives have pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors.

Both could face decades in prison, but cooperators will "likely receive a heavy reduction in their sentence," based on a likely 5k1.1 motion from the government, said Braden Perry, partner at Kennyhertz Perry and a former federal enforcement attorney. That motion is a request made by the U.S. government to a federal judge to decrease a defendant's sentence due to their help in investigating or prosecuting people involved in criminal activities.

"This typically signals substantial assistance and cooperation with authorities, and in the white-collar first-time offender status, both Singh and Wang will likely see a minimal term of imprisonment," Perry told The Block. "The exact number will depend on the amount of that assistance and the final guideline sentence based on the Presentence Investigation Report, or PSR that the judge uses in his sentencing determination."

Testifying against SBF

During Bankman-Fried's trial, Singh said the Bahamas penthouse he and others shared with Bankman-Fried was "super ostentatious" and described how they nearly bought a more affordable place, but "Sam’s a fan of views."

Singh also testified that during a one-on-one conversation with Bankman-Fried on the balcony of that Bahamas penthouse in September 2022, mere weeks before the exchange collapsed, Singh said he asked Bankman-Fried about Alameda's financial situation and the $13 billion of borrowed funds that he learned Alameda couldn't repay.

Bankman-Fried said they were "a little short on deliverables."

"I was blindsided and horrified. I felt really betrayed," Singh testified, though he remained at FTX.

Wang also testified and said that, under Bankman-Fried's direction, Alameda Research was given the ability to withdraw funds even if its account had a negative balance. 

Bankman-Fried was sentenced to nearly 25 years in prison on March 28 and ordered to pay back up to $11 billion in investor and lender losses. The former FTX CEO was found guilty in November 2023 of seven criminal counts, including two counts each of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, as well as several counts of conspiracy to commit securities and commodities fraud, among other criminal acts.