Bankman-Fried Faces More Charges, Time

Potential prison sentence for conviction on all counts reaches 155 years
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Feb 23, 2023 5:45 PM CST
Bankman-Fried Faces More Charges, Time
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried leaves Manhattan federal court in New York last Thursday.   (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was hit with new fraud charges when an updated indictment was unsealed Thursday in Manhattan federal court. Prosecutors accuse him of cheating thousands of investors out of billions of dollars while casting himself as a trustworthy "savior of the cryptocurrency industry"—an image boosted by celebrity-studded Super Bowl advertising and big donations to political figures. The new counts include securities fraud and conspiracy fraud counts, the AP reports. In a statement, US Attorney Damian Williams hinted, as he has previously, that prosecutors are not finished building their case.

"We are hard at work and will remain so until justice is done," Williams said. A spokesperson for Bankman-Fried's attorneys declined comment. The new charges raised the prison sentence Bankman-Fried could face if convicted from 115 years to 155 years, authorities said. It also boosted the number of counts in the indictment to 12, as prosecutors more thoroughly and eloquently told their story of what happened to FTX, Bankman-Fried's global cryptocurrency exchange, and its affiliated cryptocurrency trading hedge fund, Alameda Research.

The description cast FTX customers, investors, financial institutions, lenders, and the Federal Election Commission as victims of fraudulent schemes prosecutors say Bankman-Fried carried out from 2019 until last November. Prosecutors said Bankman-Fried stole billions of dollars in FTX customer deposits to support the operations and investments of FTX and Alameda and to fund speculative venture investments, make charitable donations, and spend tens of millions of dollars on illegal campaign donations to Democrats and Republicans in an attempt to buy influence over cryptocurrency regulation. Bankman-Fried is free on a $250 million personal recognizance bond that allows him to live with electronic monitoring at his parents' home in Palo Alto, California.

(More FTX stories.)

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