US federal prosecutors are calling for a 12-year prison sentence for Do Kwon, who co-founded Terraform Labs, during his upcoming sentencing next week. In a court filing from Thursday in the Southern District of New York, the attorneys urged that Kwon be sentenced to a dozen years behind bars and that his illicit gains be forfeited. This filing comes four months after Kwon entered a guilty plea on two charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud.

“In just a few years, Kwon caused losses that eclipsed those caused by Samuel Bankman-Fried, Alexander Mashinsky, and Karl Sebastian Greenwood combined,” the filing stated, emphasizing the significant impact of Kwon’s actions on the cryptocurrency marketplace, culminating in what is now referred to as ‘Crypto Winter.’

Source: Courtlistener

Kwon’s formal sentencing is slated for Thursday. He faces numerous serious charges laid out by US authorities in March 2023, including securities fraud and market manipulation, related to his actions at Terraform. After the Terra project collapsed in 2022, his location went under the radar until he was captured in Montenegro on unrelated charges and subsequently extradited to the US.

Aside from the US case, Kwon is also facing potential sentences in South Korea, where he could be looking at up to 40 years if convicted on forthcoming charges. His attorneys indicated that he would not be able to leave jail in the US as a free man, as he would immediately face deportation to South Korea, starting a new chapter of legal proceedings there.

As the sentencing discussions unfold, it’s important to note that the judge will have the discretion to impose a sentence ranging from decades in prison down to a substantially shorter term. Comparatively, Sam Bankman-Fried is serving a 25-year sentence for his own series of felonies, while Alex Mashinsky has received 12 years for his role at Celsius, and Karl Sebastian Greenwood has been sentenced to 20 years connected to OneCoin.