There’s a rumor swirling around that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has dropped all charges against Sam Bankman-Fried, the former (disgraced) head of the now defunct crypto exchange FTX, but the agency has put out a statement saying this is not correct.
Sam Bankman-Fried Will Have One Charge Against Him Dropped
At press time, it appears only one charge has been dropped against Sam Bankman-Fried, and that’s count eight, which details an alleged campaign finance charge. He was accused of trying to peddle influence and favors by donating heavy amounts of money to members of the democrat party in both the 2020 and 2022 midterm elections, but this has since been tossed to the side.
The main reason for this is because the government in the Bahamas – where Bankman-Fried was living at the time of his arrest – doesn’t consider it to be part of his extradition circumstances.
However, he’s still set to face all remaining charges. Nicholas Biase – a spokesperson for the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York – confirmed the news through an email and mentioned the former crypto head remains criminally charged per the public docket. He said:
The only count the government will not pursue is count eight, the campaign finance charge. The defendant faces trial on the remaining indictment and superseding indictment in October of this year and February of 2024.
FTX will likely go down as one of the biggest debacles of the digital currency space. The exchange – which first opened its doors for business in 2019 – rose to prominence three years later to become one of the top five digital currency trading platforms in the world. Its founder and chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried was lauded as a genius by many, and his net worth was in the billions towards the end of 2022.
Wasted Potential?
Sadly, this reputation was short-lived as in mid-November, SBF complained of a liquidity crunch on social media. He said he needed fast cash to keep his business in operation, and he eventually turned to his biggest rival Binance about a possible buyout. While things appeared to be moving in that direction for some time, Binance eventually backed away from the deal, claiming the problems FTX was facing were simply too big for it to handle.
From there, the company filed bankruptcy and SBF resigned from his post. Things would have been bad enough if they had stopped there, but the trash meter kept rising. It was later discovered that SBF had utilized customer funds to invest in luxury Bahamian real estate and to pay off loans taken out by his other company Alameda Research. He was eventually arrested and extradited back to the United States. He has entered a not guilty plea and is awaiting trial at his parents’ California home.