FTX founder Sam Bankman-fried pleads not guilty to fraud
NEW YORK – FTX founder Sam Bankmanfried pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court Tuesday to charges that he cheated investors and looted customer deposits on his cryptocurrency trading platform as a judge set a tentative trial date for October.
Bankman-fried, 30, denied charges accusing him of illegally diverting massive sums of customer money from FTX to make lavish real estate purchases, donate money to politicians and make risky trades at Alameda Research, his cryptocurrency hedge fund trading firm.
Bankman-fried’s attorney, Mark Cohen, announced his client’s plea, saying: “He pleads not guilty to all counts.”
Afterward, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan set a tentative trial date of Oct. 2, saying he might move it forward or backward a day or two. A prosecutor estimated it would take the government a month to present its case to a jury, while a defense lawyer projected putting on a case lasting two to three weeks.
Wearing a backpack, Bankman-fried marched through a crush of cameras as he entered the courthouse on a rainy day to make his first appearance before Kaplan. In the courtroom, Bankman-fried appeared relaxed through most of the half-hour-long proceeding, occasionally speaking to a lawyer next to him. When he left court, he did not speak to reporters outside.
After Bankman Fried pleaded not guilty, the judge discussed with lawyers a schedule for proceeding toward trial, setting April dates for defense lawyers to submit arguments challenging the validity of the charges and for prosecutors to respond to them. Oral arguments were set for May 18.
The judge also added to Bankman-fried’s bail conditions by banning him from accessing or transferring cryptocurrency or assets of FTX or Alameda Research or any assets purchased with funds from the companies.
He did so after Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon said Bankmanfried had worked with foreign regulators to transfer FTX assets to them after FTX declared bankruptcy and he knew U.S. bankruptcy authorities were also interested in those assets.
Sassoon said Bankmanfried expressed to a co-conspirator that he knew there was competition between U.S. bankruptcy authorities and foreign regulators and he wanted to get the assets to the foreign regulators in part because he thought they’d be more lenient with him and he might be able to regain control of his business.
Cohen, though, insisted that Bankman-fried had not personally transferred any assets and that anything that was moved came at the insistence of a court in the Bahamas that ordered it to occur.
Sassoon, noting FTX was the second largest cryptocurrency exchange, also told the judge that the government hoped to create a website for victims of the fraud, rather than notify them individually since they might number over one million.
Prior to Bankmanfried’s appearance, his lawyers sent a letter to the judge, saying Bankmanfried’s parents – both Stanford Law School professors, in recent weeks have become the target of “intense media scrutiny, harassment, and threats. They said the parents had received “a steady stream of threatening correspondence, including communications expressing a desire that they suffer physical harm.”
As a result, the lawyers asked that the names be redacted on court documents for two individuals who were lined up to sign Bankman-fried’s $250 million personal recognizance bond. Bankman-fried was released with electronic monitoring about two weeks ago on the condition that he await trial at his parents’ house in Palo Alto, California.
The judge allowed the names to remain secret for now, but he said he may reconsider his decision if members of the media or others object.
SEATTLE – Two men have been arrested and charged with vandalizing electrical substations in Washington state, attacks that left thousands without power over the holidays, and one suspect told authorities they did it so they could break into a business and steal money, U.S. authorities said Tuesday.
Matthew Greenwood, 32, and Jeremy Crahan, 40, both of Puyallup, were arrested Saturday and made initial appearances in U.S. District Court in Tacoma on Tuesday.
A newly unsealed complaint charged both with conspiracy to damage energy facilities, and it charged Greenwood with possession of a short-barreled rifle and a short-barreled shotgun. Cellphone location data and other evidence tied them to the attacks on the four substations in Pierce County, the complaint said.
The attacks on Dec. 25 left more than 15,000 customers without power. Officials have warned that the U.S. power grid needs better security to prevent domestic terrorism and after a large outage in North Carolina last month took days to repair.
According to the complaint, Greenwood told investigators after his arrest that the two knocked out power so they could burglarize a business and steal from the cash register. The business was not identified in the complaint.
“We have seen attacks such as these increase in Western Washington and throughout the country and must treat each incident