Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and former CEO of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, appeared in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon and was acquitted of eight counts of customer fraud, money laundering and campaign finance violations. claimed. Bankman-Fried’s trial was set for October 2nd. If convicted on all charges, he faces up to his 115 years in prison.
Bankman-Fried, 30, was arrested in the Bahamas, home of FTX, on December 12 and extradited to the United States on December 21. Appeared He appeared in court the next day and was released on a $250 million bail package, one of the largest in US history. Per the terms of the package, he is being held at his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California.
The unsealed indictment says the crypto entrepreneurs “willfully devised” a scheme to defraud their customers.US attorney Said At a press conference, FTX was “one of the biggest financial scams in U.S. history” and Bankman-Fried used the allegedly stolen money “for his personal gain.”
In November, the company declared bankruptcy and Bankman-Fried stepped down as CEO after investors rushed to withdraw funds from FTX, fearing FTX was about to collapse. has moved client funds to Alameda Research, a crypto hedge fund owned by Bankman-Fried.
Still, he claimed he was innocent. At the end of November he Appeared “I never tried to defraud anyone,” he said at a conference hosted by The New York Times. He blamed poor record keeping and non-existent risk management for FTX’s demise.
FTX’s new CEO, John Ray, said the company was missing $7 billion. Bankman-Fried is accused of violating campaign finance laws by laundering stolen funds and making donations in someone else’s name.
Two of Bankman-Fried’s key associates, FTX co-founder Gary Wang, 29, and former Alameda co-CEO Caroline Ellison, 28, pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges . Bankman-Fried’s former housemate and close friend — Ellison was reportedly romantically involved with the entrepreneur — the two are now working together as witnesses to help the U.S. government investigate her FTX. I am supporting.According to Ellison’s unboxing Copy of petitionAlameda was secretly lending billions of dollars to top FTX leaders.
Bankman-Fried faces civil lawsuits from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees derivatives markets, alongside criminal investigations. In addition to seeking compensation for FTX customers who lost money, the agency would like to ban Bankman-Fried from acting as a director or officer of any company in the future.
