By Luke Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sam Bankman-Fried, founding father of cryptocurrency change FTX indicted, pleaded not responsible on Thursday to new U.S. expenses of conspiring to violate marketing campaign finance legal guidelines and bribing authorities Chinese language.
Bankman-Fried, 31, argued in favor of the brand new indictment on 13 counts throughout a listening to earlier than U.S. District Decide Lewis Kaplan in federal court docket in Manhattan.
He beforehand pleaded not responsible to eight counts of fraud and conspiracy for allegedly stealing billions of funds from FTX purchasers to make up for losses at his hedge fund, Alameda Analysis.
The brand new expenses add stress on Bankman-Fried, who faces a sentence of many years in jail if convicted in a trial on account of start Oct. 2.
It was halted in December, after a wave of shopper withdrawals spurred by issues in regards to the mixture of funds between the change and Alameda induced the now bankrupt FTX to break down.
The preliminary indictment by the US 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 admitted to insufficient danger administration at FTX, however stated he didn’t steal funds.
In late February, prosecutors filed a brand new 12-count indictment detailing the fraud expenses and accusing Bankman-Fried of illegally contributing tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to US political campaigns via donors from straw, as a part of a technique to purchase affect in Washington.
And on Tuesday, prosecutors determined to unseal one other indictment, which accused Bankman-Fried of conspiring to violate an anti-corruption regulation by orchestrating a $40 million fee to Chinese language authorities to search out the entry to $1 billion in cryptocurrency in Alameda accounts that had been frozen. .
Three former members of Bankman-Fried’s interior circle – former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, former FTX CTO Zixao “Gary” Wang and former FTX CTO Nishad Singh – have all pleaded responsible and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
Bankman-Fried is confined to his dad and mom’ dwelling in Palo Alto, Calif., on $250 million bail pending trial. Earlier this week, Kaplan authorised adjustments to Bankman-Fried’s bail file that search to stop the defendant from tampering with witnesses.