Sam Bankman-Fried Pleads Not Guilty to All Charges
- Sam Bankman Fried pleaded not guilty to all eight charges against him during his first appearance in court this year, and his tril is now set to begin in early October.
- The presiding judge has modified SBF’s bail conditions to include a prohibition from accessing or transferring assets of connected to FTX and its affiliates.
Former CEO of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried leaves the Federal Court in New York after pleading not guilty, 3 January, 2022.
lev radin/Shutterstock
The former CEO of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him during his first appearance in a New York courthouse this year, Reuters reported on 3 January.
On Tuesday, disgraced CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) pleaded not-guilty to all eight charges against him — including securities fraud, wire fraud, and campaign finance law violations — which could result in 115 years in prison if he is convicted. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan of the Southern District of New York has scheduled a tentative date for the start of SBF’s trial for 2 October 2023.
One of the prosecutors in the case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, informed the court that her team would provide SBF’s lawyers with documents of their evidence in the next two weeks, and noted that this would likely be a four-week trial. Sassoon further asked the court to modify SBF’s bail conditions to include a prohibition from accessing or transferring assets connected to FTX or its affiliates, which the judge agreed to.
During the same hearing, Judge Kaplan granted the request from SBF’s legal team to redact the identifying information of the two individuals that co-signed Bankman-Fried’s $250 million bail bond, though he gave the media until 12 January to object to this decision. In their request yesterday, SBF’s legal team argued revealing the identities of the two two-signers would pose a significant threat to their privacy and security.
Sam Bankman-Fried is accused of illegally taking assets from the FTX exchange to fund the investments and expenses of its sister company Alameda Research without the consent of knowledge of users and investors. The individual is also facing charges for violating campaign finance laws by using dark-money groups to make large political donations.
Former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison and FTX co-founder Gary Wang were hit with similar charges last year, but quickly pleaded guilty and started cooperating with the U.S. government. In her plea deal, Ellison claimed that FTX acted as a “borrowing facility” for Alameda between 2019 and 2022, and that she and SBF signed off on “materially misleading financial statements” for Alameda lenders knowing it was illegal.
- The New York Jurors took 4 fours of deliberating before pronouncing the former FTX CEO guilty of all seven charges of fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud.
- Bankman-Fried will now have to appear in court on 28 March, 2024, where he will face a potential maximum sentence of 115 years in prison.
Former CEO of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried leaves the Federal Court in New York after pleading not guilty, 3 January, 2022.
lev radin/Shutterstock
- Joseph Pimbley, a member of litigation consulting firm PF2 Securities, will try to rebuff testimonies from Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang, Nishad Singh, and Adam Yedidia.
- During his testimony Pimbley will try to establish a timeline for the FTX-Alameda line of credit, and convince the jury it fluctuated between $1 billion and $3 billion between 2021 and 2022.
- The prosecution tried to paint FTX’s founder as someone who deliberately deceived his customers to get rich, and noted that he directed all activities that led to the failure of the company.
- The defense’s claimed SBF was an entrepreneur whose plans simply “didn’t work out”, and tried to cast the blame for Alameda’s downfall to its former CEO Caroline Ellison.