A former managing director at Citigroup has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for drugging and sexually assaulting at least six women over nearly a decade.

Edward Gene Smith received his sentence on Tuesday, seven months after pleading guilty to multiple charges including sex trafficking, possession of child pornography, and drug offenses. He admitted to deliberately drugging women to engage in sexual acts with them, as well as purchasing and possessing explicit images of minors.

The 50-year-old Smith could have faced up to 80 years in prison if convicted at trial. As part of his plea agreement, prosecutors agreed not to seek a sentence exceeding 30 years.

US District Judge Paul Engelmayer rejected Smith's attorney's request for a lighter sentence. From at least 2015 through 2024, Smith targeted vulnerable young women online, luring them to his apartment on Central Park South in New York and other locations, where he drugged them without their consent.

He sexually assaulted victims while they were incapacitated and recorded the crimes on video. Smith graduated from Harvard University in 1997 and became a managing director at Citigroup in 2021, a position he held until his arrest in 2024.

Prior to Citigroup, he worked at BlackRock, Banco Santander SA, State Street Bank, and Oliver Wyman. Prosecutors stated that Smith worked in capital risk analysis at Citigroup, with a base salary of $400,000 and a target bonus of $1 million at the time of his arrest.

A spokesperson for Citigroup said in a statement that as soon as the bank learned law enforcement had initiated a preliminary investigation, it immediately moved to terminate Smith's role, before these horrific allegations had even become public. Citigroup has cooperated fully with law enforcement to help deliver justice for the victims of these appalling crimes.