Celebrities named in lawsuit against failed crypto exchange FTX
NEW YORK — A host of Hollywood and sports celebrities including Larry David and Tom Brady were named as defendants in a class-action lawsuit against cryptocurrency exchange FTX, arguing their celebrity status made them culpable for promoting the firm’s failed business model.
FTX has been in the public eye for over a week after the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange ended up with billions of dollars worth of losses and had to seek bankruptcy protection Friday.
The Bahamas-based company and its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, are under investigation by state and federal authorities for allegedly investing depositors funds in ventures without their approval.
Lawmakers also announced plans to investigate FTX’s failure. The House Financial Services Committee says a hearing is planned for December.
FTX was known to use high-profile Hollywood and sports celebrities to promote its products. It had the naming rights to a Formula One racing team as well as a sports arena in Miami. Its commercials featured “Seinfeld” creator David, as well as Brady, the star quarterback of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, basketball players Shaquille O’Neal and Stephen Curry, and tennis star Naomi Osaka.
The lawsuit filed late Tuesday in Florida alleges that these sports and TV celebrities brought instant credibility to FTX, and should be held just as culpable as Bankman-Fried.
“Part of the scheme employed by the FTX Entities involved utilizing some of the biggest names in sports and entertainment — like these Defendants — to raise funds and drive American consumers to invest ... pouring billions of dollars into the deceptive FTX platform to keep the whole scheme afloat,” the suit said.
The plaintiff in the case is Pierce Robertson, who is also involved in a case involving Voyager Digital, another failed cryptocurrency company that was endorsed by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. Voyager Digital filed for bankruptcy protection this summer, but FTX pledged to buy Voyager’s assets for $1.4 billion.
The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are failing to adequately monitor domestic extremists, according to a new Senate report that also faulted social media platforms for encouraging the spread of violent and anti-government content.
The report, issued Wednesday by the Senate Homeland Security panel, called on federal law enforcement to reassess its overall response to the threat of homegrown terrorism and extremism.
The report recommends creating new definitions for extremism that are shared between agencies, improved reporting on crimes linked to white supremacy and anti-government groups, and better use of social media to prevent violence, said Sen. Gary Peters, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the committee.
Growing domestic extremism has been linked to the country’s widening political divide and a rise in distrust of institutions. Critics of social media’s role in radicalizing extremists say that misinformation and
Domestic extremism:
hate speech spread online is fueling the problem, and in some cases encouraging acts of real-world violence like the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
A federal judge on Wednesday granted the Biden administration a five-week delay to end far-reaching asylum restrictions, writing in upper-case letters that he was doing so “WITH GREAT RELUCTANCE.”
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan acknowledged in his brief order that attorneys for asylum-seeking families didn’t object to the delay and that the administration was just asking for time to prepare.
The Trump-era policy denying migrants rights under U.S. and international law to request asylum on public-health grounds of preventing spread of COVID-19 is now set to end Dec. 21.
Sullivan ruled in Washington on Tuesday that enforcement must end immediately for families and
Asylum restriction delay:
single adults. The administration has not applied it to children traveling alone. Climate summit: With a deadline rushing at them faster than agreements are coming out of them, negotiators at the U.N. climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, were in a difficult spot Wednesday.
Talks are behind the pace of previous meetings as government ministers returned to take over negotiations with the event scheduled to end on Friday.
Demands for rich nations to provide added aid for vulnerable countries suffering devastating impacts from climate change have become a major point of division at the two-week meeting.
Developed countries such as the United States have long resisted the idea of “loss and damage” for fear of being held financially liable for the carbon dioxide they’ve pumped into the atmosphere for decades. But there has been a softening of positions among some rich nations that now acknowledge
some form of payment will be needed.
Aviation spying case: A federal judge on Thursday handed down a 20-year prison sentence to a Chinese national convicted of trying to steal trade secrets from multiple U.S. aviation and aerospace companies, including the theft of proprietary airplane engine fan technology.
Judge Timothy Black in Cincinnati rejected arguments by Yanjun Xu’s attorneys that a long sentence was too harsh and the just under five years that Xu has served since his arrest was sufficient punishment. Prosecutors had asked for a 25-year sentence.
The government alleged that beginning in 2013, Xu recruited experts who worked at aviation companies, including GE Aviation in Cincinnati.
Prosecutors described Xu, 42, as a deputy division director at the Chinese Ministry of State Security, the country’s intelligence and security agency. He was accused of trying
to steal technology related to GE Aviation’s composite aircraft engine fan to benefit the Chinese government.
Spacey faces more charges:
Actor Kevin Spacey will be charged with seven further sex offenses in Britain, all relating to the same alleged victim, U.K. prosecutors said Wednesday. It brings the number of charges the Hollywood star faces in the U.K. to 12.
Britain’s Crown Prosecution said Wednesday that charges against the former “House of Cards” star are three of indecent assault, three of sexual assault and one of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent. The charges relate to incidents between 2001 and 2004.
Spacey, 63, has already pleaded not guilty to charges that he sexually assaulted three men between 2004 and 2015 when he was the artistic director at the Old Vic theater in London.
The trial for the two-time Academy Award winner is due to start June 6.