Sam Bankman-Fried, the former cryptocurrency darling, appeared in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday to kick-off his criminal trial. The founder of once-$32 billion-valued FTX is accused of running one of the biggest financial frauds in American history. Bankman-Fried is up against charges of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering, along with conspiracy to make unlawful political contributions and defraud the Federal Election Commission.
At stake is the allegation that Bankman-Fried had funnelled off customer funds to inflate his cryptocurrency firm Alameda Research and bankroll millions of dollars in conspiratorial campaign contributions. The much-discussed fraudster was even estimated to be among the largest political donors around the 2022 mid-term elections.
The first of the two trials slated for the career criminal is expected to span up to six weeks, with four FTX fraudsters testifying against Bankman-Fried. These include former CEO of reorganise Caroline Ellison and FTX co-founder Gary Wang, both of whom had agreed to plead guilty to corruption-related matters in December & February respectively. As such, Ryan Salame of the FTX team followedntup with a guilty plea of his own in early September.
To make matters worse, Bankman-Fried was was initially released on a $250 million bail during further investigation, he was hacked to be reeking havoc whilst outside, resultimg in Judge Lewis Kaplan’s decision to summons him back into custody in August. U.S. prosecutors accused him of harassing Ellison, an executiveho served with him in Alameda Research, by sharing her personal writings with the New York Times & devised a plot to obscure other potential witnesses in the saeking of legalizing emmmons himself to a safe outcome.