It has been one year since Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas and charged with multiple counts of criminal fraud and money laundering. Bankman-Fried was tried and found guilty of 7 counts. He is awaiting sentencing. He faces up to 110 years in prison. Yahoo Finance Legal Reporter Alexis Keenan joins the Live show for Yahoo Finance's #7 Story of the Year and to discuss how the case against him unraveled and what may happen next for Bankman-Fried and FTX.

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Video Transcript

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- We're counting down the top 10 stories of 2023 here at Yahoo Finance. And coming in at number seven, Sam Bankman-Fried goes on trial.

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- Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to federal fraud charges.

- It's going to be an uphill battle for Bankman-Fried and his defense team.

- Sam Bankman-Fried's bail has been revoked, and was immediately handcuffed and placed in custody.

- Sam Bankman-Fried found guilty of all seven charges.

- The jury clearly was receptive to the government's case was not persuaded by Bankman-Fried's testimony. And we saw that with their swift verdict.

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- 2023 brought the anticipated criminal fraud trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried after the collapse of his crypto exchange in 2022. The time came for Bankman-Fried to make his case in court. He with have the case unfolded is Yahoo Finance's Alexis Keenan. Alexis.

ALEXIS KEENAN: Yeah, guys so it's been exactly one year since Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas. And he was charged as we now know with these seven counts of criminal fraud and money laundering. And they were federal charges alleging that the reason that FTX imploded was because Bankman-Fried and his top executives were taking money from the exchange that was put there by customers, by lenders, by investors, and used it to push over to his sister crypto hedge fund Alameda Research, which then in turn spent the money on lavish real estate-- multi-million dollar real estate, multi-million dollar political donations, as well as risky crypto investments.

Now, it was this year, though, that this New York City criminal trial unfolded in October over a four-week period. And the justice here for Bankman-Fried was really swift. He pleaded guilty in January. And it was the beginning of November by the time the jury agreed with the Justice Department here, saying that he was guilty of these fraud charges.

The charges carry 110 years in federal prison. And you had Sam Bankman-Fried's top executives turning against him, taking plea deals with the government and saying that they participated in this scheme that brought this $34 billion exchange down to a $9 billion deficit to the point where the exchange could not return customer funds.

- I mean, this was just a stunning story. When we count down the top stories of the year, this one is a no-brainer to be on the list because it kind of had everything from a story perspective, although unfortunately for the people involved had a lot to effect.

I mean, the fact that SBF was romantically involved with one of the people who testified against him, who was running the hedge fund--

ALEXIS KEENAN: They were Alison. Yes.

- --the fact that a bunch of them were living together in the Bahamas.

ALEXIS KEENAN: He was hanging out with celebrities like Tom Brady. He became part of our pop culture. And look, this was one of the largest financial frauds in US history, s so certainly significant. And also, this really became-- a Bankman-Fried became the face of what is a much bigger, a much wider government prosecution and crackdown on the crypto industry.

You saw the CEO of Binance make a guilty plea to DOJ charges that are money laundering related, paying a huge fine. There $4 plus billion, you also had the SEC going after Grayscale, Coinbase, and Ripple, not always succeeding, but definitely trying here. And Bankman-Fried, though, absolutely the primary target in this enterprise.

- And Alexis, the bankruptcy hearing tomorrow, just spinning ahead, what do you expect there? And the bottom line question of whether these customers are going to get their money back?

ALEXIS KEENAN: Yeah, so tomorrow is another day in court. It's a typical day in court. It's an omnibus hearing. But we should get some updates about how much money the exchange has recovered so far. The last we heard was about $7 billion plus. So customers hoping to get some money back there.

But look, the exchange has to pay back its lenders as well. There's a lot of people standing in line. Customers not certainly at the front of that line. But it's a general hearing, we should learn a little bit more about the fate of this company as it works its way through the bankruptcy process.

- All right, the headline of the day from Bloomberg, by the way, Sam Bankman-Fried's lawyer says client was the worst witness he has ever seen.

- I mean, it's not exactly a surprising headline. But it isn't it--

ALEXIS KEENAN: He was not a star witness. But maybe he didn't have a choice either. Yeah.

- Yeah. Alexis, thank you so much. Appreciate it.