Disgraced FTX founder and Democrat super donor Sam Bankman-Fried asked a federal court in Manhattan on Monday to dismiss most of the criminal charges against him.
Attorneys for Bankman-Fried — who has pleaded not guilty to fraud, conspiracy, campaign finance law violations, and money laundering — argued that several charges against the FTX founder failed to properly state an offense, according to a report by Axios.
Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and chief executive officer of FTX Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange, speaks during the Institute of International Finance (IIF) annual membership meeting in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022. This year’s conference theme is “The Search for Stability in an Era of Uncertainty, Realignment and Transformation.” Photographer: Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images
In the Monday filing to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers asked for the dismissal of 10 of the 13 charges made against him.
In November 2022, FTX suddenly collapsed after Bankman-Fried told investors that the cryptocurrency exchange was facing a major shortfall of up to $8 billion from withdrawal requests and needed emergency funding.
Around that time, the FTX founder’s hedge fund, Alameda Research, had also shut down. Shortly after that, FTX filed for bankruptcy, and Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas in December.
He pleaded not guilty to charges of wire fraud and money laundering, and was released on a $250 million bond, which was co-signed by his parents and two anonymous guarantors.
In March, the Department of Justice (DOJ) alleged in a new indictment that Bankman-Fried paid over $40 million in bribes to at least one Chinese government official.
Meanwhile, the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange has recovered more than $7.3 billion in assets and wants to reboot its business by allowing customers to trade crypto again. Whether anyone trusts the company founded by Bankman-Fried is another question.
The disgraced FTX founder and Democrat mega donor will stand trail in October.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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