The trainer was charged among others for fraud and association of criminals. In total, eight charges were retained against him, five provide a maximum sentence of twenty years’ imprisonment.
mo12345lemonde with AFP
The co-founder and former boss of the cryptocurrencies FTX Cryptomonnai exchange platform, Sam Bankman-Fried, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday, January 3, of the eight charges held against him, before a federal court of New York.
accused among others for fraud and association of criminals, he had been extradited at the end of December 2022 of the Bahamas, where the siege of FTX was, then released when he arrived in New York, for a deposit of 250 Millions of dollars (237 million euros).
At the hearing, the trainer and entrepreneur, in dark suit and tie, did not speak and left his lawyer Mark Cohen speaking in his name. The strategy of Sam Bankman-Fried differs from that of a former executive manager of FTX, Gary Wang, who pleaded guilty last month and collaborates with the authorities, just like Caroline Ellison, former head of Alameda Research, the platform Ftx sister form.
Sam Bankman-Fried is suspected of having used, with employees, funds deposited by customers on the FTX platform to carry out speculative financial operations through Alameda Research.
In addition to the risk transactions carried out via Alameda, he is also suspected of having invested part of this money in real estate in the Bahamas and having made donations to democratic political figures, including Joe Biden For the presidential campaign of 2020.
The trainer could end his life in prison
The federal judge Lewis Kaplan set the start date of the trial of the one who was credited with a fortune estimated at 26 billion dollars, but lost everything in the bankruptcy of FTX and Alameda Research.
The representative of the office of the Federal Prosecutor of Manhattan, Danielle Sassoon, estimated at four weeks the duration necessary at the trial, when the lawyers of the accused mentioned two to three weeks. The judge did not settle this point.
Five of the eight charges retained against Sam Bankman-Fried, each, provide a maximum of twenty years in prison. Currently under house arrest with his parents, in California, he is therefore likely to spend the rest of his days in prison.
Since the bankruptcy of FTX, on November 11, 2022, Sam Bankman-Fried repeatedly argued publicly that he had not been in the controllers of Alameda Research for many months, indirectly incriminating Caroline Ellison. This argument was challenged by the public prosecutor, who affirms that he remained the main decision -maker within this structure to the FTX bankruptcy.
Danielle Sassoon said that the Manhattan Federal Prosecutor’s Office Damian Williams planned to produce in the next two weeks “hundreds of thousands of documents” in support of her accusations. The regulator of derivative financial products in the United States, the CFTC, estimates the total of FTX customers’ clients accounts. Danielle Sassoon said on Tuesday that the number of victims of the supposed actions of Sam Bankman-Fried could be “beyond the million”.