Per a Reuters report, the founder and former CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman Fried (SBF), reached a deal with U.S. authorities. Following his extradition from the Bahamas, SBF was granted bail and allowed to go into the custody of his parents in Palo Alto, California.
The FTX Founder is expected to plea over his involvement in a scheme that defrauded millions from its investors and lost billions in customer funds. The collapse of this crypto exchange has been one of the worst in recent financial history; its implications continue to ripple across the nascent industry.
Sam Bankman Fried To Avoid Time In Prison?
According to the report, the former FTX CEO will appear before U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in a federal court in New York. The hearing will take place on January 3rd, 2023.
Reuters claims that Kaplan recently took on the case after the previous judge recused herself. The judge quit the case following accusations about her family’s ties to the FTX founder.
As Bitcoinist reported, upon his extradition from the Bahamas, SBF was charged with two counts of wire fraud and six counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The charges include major accusations, such as money launder and alleged attempts to commit campaign finance violations.
SBF was a prominent political donor. According to several reports, the FTX founder donated millions to the two major political parties in the U.S., the democrats, and the republicans. Most likely, to protect himself in case the operation crashed.
The Democrats received over $40 million from FTX, SBF, or other representatives from the failed company. Meanwhile, the Republicans took over $23 million from the crypto exchange.
The case already saw two guilty convictions from Caroline Ellison, CEO of FTX’s trading arm, Alameda Research, and Gary Wang, former Chief Technology Officer of the crypto exchange. Both agreed to pay hefty fines for their involvement in the case.
In that sense, SBF is likely to take on a similar deal. However, authorities are yet to provide further details. Talking about the case and Sam Bankman-Fried’s choices, former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton said:
All of these things will be the subject of negotiation if there is a plea arrangement. Like you said before, there is a ton of considerations that are going to go into this (political, legal, financial, etc.). I think there will be tremendous pressure to reach a resolution (…).
As of this writing, Bitcoin trades at $16,600 with sideways movement on the daily chart.