NEW YORK – Testimony from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s “trusted inner circle” of former executives at his collapsed cryptocurrency empire will be used to end up at an October trial that he misappropriated billions of greenbacks from his traders to gas his companies, make unlawful marketing campaign contributions and enrich himself, prosecutors mentioned Monday.
Prosecutors made the assertions in papers filed in Manhattan federal courtroom, the place Bankman-Fried is charged with defrauding investors in his businesses and illegally diverted tens of millions of greenbacks’ value of cryptocurrency from shoppers the use of his FTX alternate. He has pleaded now not accountable.
The courtroom submitting, wherein prosecutors describe proof they plan to provide to jurors, got here 3 days after Bankman-Fried was sent to a federal jail in Brooklyn to look ahead to trial through Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who mentioned there was once possible motive to imagine he had attempted to tamper with witness testimony no less than two times since his December arrest.
It additionally got here at the similar day that prosecutors filed a streamlined indictment that incorporates the seven fees Bankman-Fried faces on the Oct. 2 trial — however there is no longer a marketing campaign finance rate for now, despite the fact that it might cross to trial later if they’re discovered to conform with the phrases of an extradition treaty with the Bahamas.
Still, prosecutors mentioned in the newest indictment that Bankman-Fried misappropriated buyer cash to assist fund over $100 million in political contributions prematurely of the 2022 election. The indictment mentioned he sought to “maximize FTX’s political influence” and use “these connections with politicians and government officials to falsely burnish the public image of FTX as a legitimate exchange.”
Late Monday, Bankman-Fried’s legal professionals filed their very own courtroom papers comparable to trial proof. In them, they requested that the trial pass judgement on exclude proof concerning the FTX chapter, the solvency of FTC and its affiliated buying and selling platform, Alameda Research, and their talent to pay shoppers again.
They additionally requested that the pass judgement on ban prosecutors from telling jurors that Bankman-Fried resigned from FTX. They mentioned they’ll oppose the prosecution’s plans to introduce proof comparable to severed or withdrawn counts, such because the marketing campaign finance rate.
Before Friday, Bankman Fried, 31, were dwelling along with his oldsters in Palo Alto, California, after signing a $250 million private recognizance bond following his extradition from the Bahamas ultimate December.
Prosecutors just lately sought his detention, pronouncing he had attempted to intimidate his former female friend, Caroline Ellison — the onetime CEO of Alameda Research — through releasing some of her writing to a journalist.
On Monday, the federal government mentioned they’d depend on testimony from Ellison, FTX co-founder Gary Wang and previous FTX engineering leader Nishad Singh to display jurors “the unlawful conduct directed and undertaken by the defendant.”
All 3 have pleaded accountable to prison fees in cooperation agreements with the federal government that would earn them leniency at sentencing.
Prosecutors mentioned they “formed the defendant’s trusted inner circle during the course of the conspiracy” and their testimony will be supplemented through a couple of former workers of Alameda and FTX along side a number of sufferers, together with shoppers, lenders and traders.
Other proof will consist of monetary data, Google paperwork and spreadsheets, and personal communications, they added.
A spokesperson for Bankman-Fried declined touch upon Monday.
Meanwhile, the pass judgement on on Monday granted a request through protection legal professionals that their consumer be provided his day-to-day prescribed medicines for melancholy and a focus deficit/hyperactivity dysfunction.
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