Sam Bankman-Fried – the former head of the digital currency exchange FTX, which collapsed into a burning heap of bankruptcy and fraud last November – is asking the judge overseeing his case to dismiss most of the criminal charges against him.
Bankman-Fried Seems to Imply Things Are Rigged Against Him
Right now, Sam Bankman-Fried is facing 13 separate criminal charges. He and his lawyers are requesting that the judge toss out a total of ten, thus bringing the end count to three. The situation is an odd one given that they are not requesting all the charges be dismissed outright. Even if the former crypto executive gets his way, it’s likely he’ll still face certain penalties, so is this just a gimmick to try and reduce his time behind bars?
Attorneys for Bankman-Fried commented in a statement:
Rather than wait for traditional civil and regulatory processes following their ordinary course to address the situation, the government jumped in with both feet, improperly seeking to turn these civil and regulatory issues into federal crimes… The FTX debtors have worked so extensively with the government and are so enmeshed in the investigation, analysis, and strategy of the government’s case, that they must be considered part of the ‘prosecution team.’
FTX will likely go down as one of the biggest debacles of the digital currency space. The exchange – which first opened its doors for business in 2019 – rose to prominence three years later to become one of the top five digital currency trading platforms in the world. Its founder and chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried was lauded as a genius by many, and his net worth was in the billions towards the end of 2022.
Sadly, this reputation was short-lived as in mid-November, SBF complained of a liquidity crunch on social media. He said he needed fast cash to keep his business in operation, and he eventually turned to his biggest rival Binance about a possible buyout. While things appeared to be moving in that direction for some time, Binance eventually backed away from the deal, claiming the problems FTX was facing were simply too big for it to handle.
The Problems Didn’t Stop
From there, the company filed bankruptcy and SBF resigned from his post. Things would have been bad enough if they had stopped there, but the trash meter kept rising. It was later discovered that SBF had utilized customer funds to invest in luxury Bahamian real estate and to pay off loans taken out by his other company Alameda Research. He was eventually arrested and extradited back to the United States. He has entered a not guilty plea and is awaiting trial at his parents’ California home.
Bankman-Fried is also believed to have had extreme influence in the world of American politics, donating heavily to democrat politicians.
