FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried to Face Campaign Finance Charge, Prosecutors Say

Founder of failed crypto exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, will be held accountable for alleged campaign finance violations, U.S. prosecutors indicated on Tuesday. The charge was dropped earlier because the extradition treaty with the Bahamas prevents adding further charges without prior permission from the other side.

Sam Bankman-Fried to Be Charged With Campaign Finance Violations Next Week

A campaign finance charge will be incorporated into a superseding indictment against founder and former CEO of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), next week, prosecutors made clear in a letter to a Manhattan federal judge on Aug. 8.

Following his extradition from the Bahamian capital Nassau last year, soon after FTX filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. in November, the crypto entrepreneur was hit with over a dozen charges, including fraud and bribery, to which he pleaded not guilty.

Among them were the allegations of campaign finance violations — Bankman-Fried was accused of using some of the billions of U.S. dollars of customer funds that he allegedly misappropriated to make political donations in the United States.

The U.S. prosecution had to drop this charge in July because of the terms of the extradition treaty with the government of the Bahamas, where SBF resided and FTX was headquartered. Bahamian authorities had not agreed to extradite SBF based on that count.

However, federal prosecutors in New York said on Tuesday that the forthcoming indictment they now plan to file will incorporate the campaign finance allegations into other existing charges, CNBC and ABC News reported. In their letter to the judge, they stated:

The superseding indictment will make clear that Mr. Bankman-Fried remains charged with conducting an illegal campaign finance scheme as part of the fraud and money laundering schemes originally charged.

In early May, Bankman-Fried asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan to dismiss several charges against him filed after his extradition from the Bahamas. His lawyers insisted that the U.S. government had not obtained consent from Bahamian authorities for the additional counts, which included the campaign finance law violation.

SBF, who has been living under house arrest at his parent’s home in California on a $250 million bond, also sought to avoid jailing ahead of his trial set to begin in October. Prosecutors asked Kaplan to jail him for witness tampering after he provided to the New York Times excerpts from a diary written by his former girlfriend and former CEO of his hedge fund Alameda Research, Caroline Ellison.

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