NEW YORK, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Sam Bankman-Fried was hit with new prison expenses on Thursday, in an expanded indictment accusing the founding father of the now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency alternate of conspiring to make greater than 300 unlawful political donations.
Bankman-Fried now faces 12 prison expenses, together with 4 for fraud and eight for conspiracy, up from eight expenses in an earlier indictment, to which he has pleaded not responsible.
Prosecutors have accused Bankman-Fried of stealing billions of {dollars} in FTX buyer funds to plug losses at Alameda Analysis, his crypto-focused hedge fund.
The brand new expenses add to stress on the 30-year-old former billionaire, who has seen two of his former prime lieutenants plead responsible.
Bankman-Fried can be making an attempt to remain out of jail, after his on-line exercise since his arrest prompted U.S. District Choose Lewis Kaplan, who oversees the case, to sign a willingness to revoke his $250 million bail bundle.
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A spokesman for Bankman-Fried declined to remark.
Bankman-Fried’s trial is slated for October. Kaplan on Thursday prolonged a short lived ban on Bankman-Fried’s contacting FTX and Alameda staff to March 3 from Feb. 24.
The brand new indictment mentioned Bankman-Fried conspired with two former FTX executives to donate tens of tens of millions of {dollars} in an effort to affect lawmakers to go laws favorable to the corporate.
These donations had been illegal as a result of they had been made with “straw” donors or company funds, enabling Bankman-Fried – one of many largest donors to Democrats within the 2022 midterm elections – to evade contribution limits, prosecutors mentioned.
LGBTQ DONATION
Prosecutors mentioned Bankman-Fried directed one government to donate primarily to left-leaning candidates and organizations and the opposite to Republicans, with many donations funded by Alameda and together with FTX buyer funds.
The indictment mentioned a political guide working for Bankman-Fried instructed one of many executives, recognized as CC-1, that “you being the middle left face of our spending will imply you giving to a number of woke shit for transactional functions.”
That government gave greater than $1 million to a pro-LGBTQ group at Bankman-Fried’s route, the indictment mentioned.
Federal Election Fee information present that Nishad Singh, FTX’s former engineering chief, contributed $1.1 million on July 7, 2022 to the LGBTQ Victory Fund, a nationwide group devoted to electing brazenly LGBTQ folks.
In a press release, the group mentioned it has “put aside funds and can take applicable motion as soon as we obtain steerage from authorities.”
A lawyer for Singh didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
After founding FTX in 2019, Bankman-Fried rode a growth within the worth of Bitcoin and different digital property to achieve an estimated $26 billion fortune.
His alternate collapsed in November amid a flurry of buyer withdrawals over considerations the alternate was commingling property with Alameda.
‘DREAD OF THIS DAY’
When it grew to become clear FTX couldn’t meet withdrawal calls for, Bankman-Fried directed Alameda to promote property to pay the alternate’s prospects, prosecutors mentioned.
The indictment mentioned that on Nov. 6, 5 days earlier than FTX’s chapter submitting, Bankman-Fried forwarded CC-1 a message from Caroline Ellison, then Alameda’s chief government.
“I simply had an rising dread of this present day that was weighing on me for a very long time,” Ellison wrote, “and now that it is really occurring it simply feels nice to get it over with a method or one other.”
Ellison and former FTX know-how chief Gary Wang pleaded responsible to fraud expenses in December and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
The brand new expenses in opposition to Bankman-Fried embody conspiracies to commit financial institution fraud and function an unlicensed cash transmitting enterprise.
Prosecutors mentioned Bankman-Fried instructed a unnamed California financial institution he wished to open an account for a buying and selling firm, however supposed the account to course of deposits and withdrawals for FTX prospects.
The financial institution had beforehand instructed Bankman-Fried it was unwilling to course of such transactions, the indictment learn.
Reporting by Luc Cohen and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Enhancing by Mark Porter and Anna Driver
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