Sam Bankman-Fried is expected to enter a plea deal next week to fraud charges connected to the collapse of the Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange he founded, FTX.com, Reuters reported early Thursday morning, Hong Kong time.
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Fast facts
- Bankman-Fried is expected to appear back in the Manhattan federal court on Jan. 3, 2023. He will face U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who took over the case on Tuesday after the original judge recused herself due to her husband’s law firm advising FTX before it collapsed, according to Reuters.
- Prosecutors have accused the 30-year-old entrepreneur of conducting a years-long fraud, using customer deposits to fund his crypto trading firm Alameda Research, buy extravagant real estate and make political contributions.
- Two of Bankman-Fried’s associates, former Alameda chief executive officer Caroline Ellison and former FTX chief technology officer and cofounder Gary Wang, have been cooperating with prosecutors after pleading guilty to charges related to the alleged fraud scheme.
- According to Ellison, FTX executives, including former CEO Bankman-Fried, deliberately misled lenders and customers about the funds Alameda was borrowing from now-bankrupt FTX.
- Bankman-Fried has been ordered to stay at his parents’ home in California following his release on a US$250 million bail deal on Dec. 22, which has been called the “largest ever pretrial bond.”
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