Nishad Singh is the latest member of Sam Bankman-Fried’s inner circle to plead guilty in FTX case
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Nishad Singh, who led engineering at FTX, has pleaded guilty to six criminal charges.
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The SEC separately charged him with siphoning about $6 million from FTX for “personal use and expenses.”
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Singh “deeply regrets his role in this,” his attorneys told Insider in a statement.
Nishad Singh is the latest top exec at Sam Bankman-Fried’s defunct crypto company to plead guilty to criminal charges over the fall of FTX.
Singh pleaded guilty to six counts, including wire fraud and various charges of conspiracy, according to a filing filed in federal court in New York on Tuesday. The federal prosecutors’ indictments outline their now-known allegations of a plan at FTX to use client funds to support the functions of Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund Alameda Research.
“Singh has colluded with others to defraud clients of FTX by embezzling those clients’ deposits and using those deposits to pay Alameda Research’s expenses and debts, make investments, and for other purposes,” prosecutors said in their indictment document against Singh.
Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, and FTX co-founder Gary Wang both pleaded guilty in December and are also cooperating with federal prosecutors.
Bankman-Fried, who was hit this month with an updated indictment setting out 12 counts against him, pleaded not guilty in January.
Separately, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed its own civil complaint against Singh on Tuesday, detailing its allegations of how Singh fits into the alleged scheme at FTX and Alameda. Securities regulators accused Singh of helping create code that essentially allowed FTX client funds to slosh around with Alameda’s finances. They also accused him of accepting money from FTX.
“Singh has withdrawn approximately $6 million from FTX for personal use and expenses, including the purchase of a multi-million dollar home and charitable donations,” the SEC said in a statement.
According to the SEC’s complaint, Singh served as chief technical officer at both FTX and Alameda.
“Nishad deeply regrets his role in this matter and accepts responsibility for his actions,” Singh’s attorneys Andrew Goldstein and Russell Capone, both partners at Cooley LLP, told Insider in a statement.
“He wants to do everything he can to make things right for the victims, including helping the government to the best of his ability in this case,” they said.
A representative for Sam Bankman-Fried declined to comment.
The indictment against Bankman-Fried, updated this month, alleges that he attempted to exert influence in Washington through strategic political contributions, including through two senior FTX executives whom prosecutors have described as “spinners.”
“Today’s guilty plea underscores once again that the crimes at FTX were enormous in scope and scope,” US Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement Tuesday. “They rocked our financial markets with a multi-billion dollar scam. And they have corrupted our politics with tens of millions of dollars in illegal straw campaign contributions.”
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