FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Faces More Criminal Charges – The Latest Twist in a High-Profile Case
Disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried faces additional criminal charges, including charges of concealing information from banks.
In an indictment released Thursday this week, Bankman-Fried was charged with four counts in addition to the original eight counts. The new charges included bank fraud, operating an unlicensed money transfer business and charges of securities and merchandise fraud.
The original charges, to which Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty, included stealing billions of dollars in funds from FTX customers and charges of misleading investors and lenders.
Notably, the new indictments not only detailed Bankman-Fried’s alleged criminal conduct in running FTX, but also irregularities related to his massive political donations. The indictment alleged that the former FTX boss tried to circumvent campaign finance laws and that he tried to buy political influence through his fundraising program.
Bankman-Fried was known as a major contributor to the Democratic Party. He has also donated to other causes, often focused on health, pandemic prevention and climate change, all as part of his quest for “effective altruism.”
“Much awake shit”
The new indictment also included a description of communications between a political adviser working for Bankman-Fried and an FTX executive, which revealed more about the true nature of the donations.
“Generally you mean you’re the middle left face of our spending, you give a lot of woke shit for transactional purposes,” the political adviser told the FTX staffer, according to the indictment.
The indictment added that the same executive later donated more than $1 million to a group “affiliated with pro-LGBTQ issues” that Bankman-Fried selected.
A big donor
Public data shows that Bankman-Fried was the second largest donor to the Democratic Party in the 2021-2022 election cycle, behind billionaire George Soros. He has donated more than $46 million to Democratic Party-affiliated candidates and groups, according to OpenSecrets.
So far, Democratic politicians have only pledged to pay back about 3% of the total received from Bankman-Fried. This is despite requests from FTX’s new CEO, bankruptcy expert John Ray III, to pay back the money by February 28.
Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas after US prosecutors first filed criminal charges against him. He was later extradited to the United States, where he was released from prison after posting $250 million bail in a New York court.