4 new counts could cost SBF 40 more years
Feds say he burned banks, made illegal pol donations
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was hit with new federal charges Wednesday, alleging he defrauded banks and pumped millions in masked donations into the political system for personal gain.
Bankman-Fried, 30, faces four new criminal charges in the billion-dollar fraud case, including conspiracy to commit bank fraud and securities fraud. They add to eight counts the embattled crypto entrepreneur pleaded not guilty to in January, including wire fraud and money laundering.
“We are hard at work and will remain so until justice is done,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said.
The new charges, filed Tuesday against Bankman-Fried, who’s under house arrest in California on a $250 million bond, carry 40 extra years in prison, authorities said.
The superseding indictment lays out in much greater detail how Bankman-Fried carried out his accused crimes, and “portrayed himself as a savior of the cryptocurrency industry, making venture investments and acquisitions purportedly to assist struggling industry participants.” It reveals how he allegedly scammed thousands who entrusted him “with billions of dollars in savings,” only to find themselves “overnight unable to withdraw their funds and unsure about whether they would ever be repaid” when FTX collapsed.
The rewritten indictment describes how Bankman-Fried used billions to beef up his crypto empire to “enrich himself; and to try to purchase influence over cryptocurrency regulation in Washington, D.C., by steering tens of millions of dollars of illegal campaign contributions to both Democrats and Republicans.”
Legal papers reveal the scale of Bankman-Fried’s alleged attempts to influence America’s laws and regulations in the crypto sphere.
The feds say he and two unnamed co-conspirators contributed more than 300 donations to Republican and Democratic federal political candidates between fall 2021 and November 2022, totaling millions of dollars and allowing him to evade contribution limits.
Bankman-Fried made the donations, “in part to improve his personal standing in Washington, D.C., increase FTX’s profile, and curry favor with candidates that could help pass legislation favorable to FTX” or push his personal agenda, including regulatory oversight of FTX,” the indictment charges.
He gave “substantial” contributions to candidates in both houses, disguising those to left-leaning and Republican candidates through straw donations made by the co-conspirators, according to the indictment.
“These straw donations were instead made for purposes of furthering the political agenda of (Bankman-Fried) ... while providing him cover to avoid being associated with certain contributions, and concealing that the source of the contributions was in fact, Alameda,” the papers charge.
Bankman-Fried channeled the donations through Alameda’s bank accounts, which included stolen funds deposited by FTX customers. The money then went to the co-conspirators before it was doled out as political donations.
The concealed contributions made Bankman-Fried one of the biggest reported political donors in the 2022 midterms, according to the indictment.
An unnamed political consultant is quoted in the indictment as telling one of Bankman-Fried’s co-conspirators last year that they should plan to donate to progressive causes.
“[In] general, you being the center left face of our spending will mean you giving to a lot of woke s—t for transactional purposes,” the consultant said.
Bankman Fried directed at least $1 million in concealed corporate donations to a super PAC backing a congressional candidate supporting LGBTQ rights.