You did not defend the guy in the sense that you are arguing for his innocence (to my knowledge). So that clarification is necessary for me to make.

Every personal argument between you and me regarding this subject was about what his punishment would be. The general consensus in Conspiracies forum was that he'd be treated with Jewish privilege, which seems to be the case since his sentencing is light compared to what a white man would receive.

It also seems that they did not levy as many charges against him as they should have.

Do you know if the judge ruled on how the political donations should be treated? The DNC had stated that they'd set aside the money until legal counsel advised how to treat it, but I never heard an update.

Democrats won’t use Sam Bankman-Fried’s campaign donations https://www.axios.com/2022/12/17/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-democrats-donations

By the numbers: Bankman-Fried spent about $37 million on mostly Democratic candidates and causes during the 2022 midterms, Axios reports. All in all, he was the party's second-biggest donor, behind George Soros, per data from OpenSecrets... DNC spokesman Daniel Wessel said in a statement to AP on Friday that the group would put its donations aside for now until it receives legal guidance on what to do next.

I am not a legal expert, but my guess is that there are federal guidelines that give a spectrum of sentencing guidelines for crimes such as this. So where the Federal government uses more discretion is what charges they press in the first place, and which charges they drop or dismiss. For each charge they can stack sentencing. To look into this in more depth would take time that I do not have available today. But perhaps we can dive into it deeper in the future so you and I can stop arguing about how fair or unfair or harsh his sentencing was.