SBF Ends Up in ‘Victimville’, One of the Most Violent Prisons in California

The Federal Bureau of Prisons has moved Sam Bankman-Fried to a Southern California prison known for its brutality.

The fallen founder of the FTX exchange has been incarcerated at a medium security facility in Victorville, California, about two hours northeast of Los Angeles, as of Wednesday, according to a BOP inmate locator.

Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in November 2023 for defrauding users, in what was considered one of the most significant U.S. financial crimes in the country’s nearly 250-year history.

The transfer to the Victorville Medium II FCI comes after Bankman-Fried spent two weeks at an Oklahoma Transfer Center. He spent more than 18 months at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, N.Y.

A federal prison consultant, Christopher Zoukis, told Decrypt last month that medium-security prisons where inmates with longer sentences land tend to offer lower quality of life and higher risks of violence than lower security alternatives.

Zoukis said that West Coast prisons “tend to be a lot harder.”

“There’s a lot more gang involvement, and a lot more prison politics, than at East Coast or mid-Atlantic mediums,” he said.

A web page provided by Zoukis’s consulting firm, described Victorville, which is sometimes referenced as “Victimville” in online groups, as “a very political yard where inmates must be part of a racially-oriented car to stay.” The web paage cited an inmate who said that “‘a car is required for personal safety.'”

In prison slang, a “car” refers to a group or crew of inmates who band together based on shared traits—typically race, geographic origin, or gang affiliation—for protection and solidarity.

The website added that there is “a significant level of violence at FCI Victorville Medium II prison,” with one respondent noting that “‘fights are regular, and stabbings are not uncommon.’”

In January 2023, three prison inmates were found guilty of second-degree murder in the beating death of another inmate at the facility in a 2013 incident.

In 2017, an inmate was charged with attempted murder for stabbing the warden with a shank–the wound required more than 80 staples to close–and guards were assaulted in separate incidents later in the year.

The medium security prison, one of three facilities in Victorville, houses 1,434 inmates, according to BOP.

Inmates live in two, three and four-person cells. Among the Victorville Medium II’s most famous inmates is Mohamed Osman Mohamud, who was sentenced to 30 years in 2013 for attempting to detonate a vehicle bomb at an annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland.

Bankman-Fried was sentenced after a Manhattan jury found him guilty on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy. To this day, he maintains his innocence, recently saying, “I don’t think I’m a criminal,” as he works toward appealing his conviction.

He will have an electronic law library at his disposal. He will also be able to participate in basketball, leather working, art, and Foosball. In addition, the prison’s educational offerings include courses in Microsoft 2010.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair