FTX's Bankman-Fried pleads not responsible to marketing campaign finance, China bribery prices

By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Indicted FTX cryptocurrency trade founder Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not responsible on Thursday to new U.S. prices of conspiring to violate marketing campaign finance legal guidelines and bribe Chinese language authorities.

Bankman-Fried, 31, entered the plea to the brand new, 13-count indictment by means of his lawyer, Mark Cohen, at a listening to earlier than U.S. District Choose Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan federal court docket.

He had earlier pleaded not responsible to eight counts of fraud and conspiracy for allegedly stealing billions in FTX buyer funds to plug losses at his hedge fund, Alameda Analysis.

Cohen stated he was planning to problem the brand new prices as a result of they have been introduced after Bankman-Fried was extradited from the Bahamas, the place he was arrested in December and the place FTX was primarily based.

The brand new prices add to the strain on Bankman-Fried, who faces a potential sentence of a long time in jail if convicted at a trial set to start out on Oct. 2.

Bankman-Fried’s arrest got here after a flurry of buyer withdrawals spurred by considerations about commingling of funds between the trade and Alameda prompted the collapse of now-bankrupt FTX.

The preliminary indictment by the U.S. Legal professional’s workplace in Manhattan contained few particulars in regards to the alleged scheme. In an uncommon post-arrest weblog submit, the previous billionaire acknowledged insufficient threat administration at FTX, however stated he didn’t steal funds.

Prosecutors in late February filed a brand new 12-count indictment elaborating on the fraud prices and accusing Bankman-Fried of illicitly contributing tens of tens of millions of {dollars} to U.S. political campaigns by means of straw donors, a part of a technique to purchase affect in Washington.

And on Tuesday, prosecutors moved to unseal yet one more indictment, which accused Bankman-Fried of conspiring to violate an anti-bribery legislation by orchestrating a $40 million fee to Chinese language authorities to regain entry to $1 billion in cryptocurrency in Alameda accounts that had been frozen.

Three former members of Bankman-Fried’s inside circle – former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, former FTX expertise chief Zixao “Gary” Wang, and former FTX engineering director Nishad Singh – have all pleaded responsible and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

Bankman-Fried is confined to his dad and mom’ Palo Alto, California, house on $250 million bond pending trial. Earlier this week, Kaplan permitted modifications to Bankman-Fried’s bail package deal which are designed to stop the defendant from tampering with witnesses.