FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Hit With Four New Criminal Charges (cnbc.com) 45
FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried was hit Thursday with four new criminal charges, including ones related to commodities fraud and making unlawful political contributions, in a superseding indictment filed in New York federal court. A source familiar with the new counts said that SBF, as he is popularly known, could face an additional 40 years in prison if convicted in the case, where he is accused of "multiple schemes to defraud." CNBC reports: The charging document lays out how Bankman-Fried allegedly operated an illegal straw donor scheme as he moved to use customers funds to run a multimillion-dollar political influence campaign. Bankman-Fried and fellow FTX executives combined to contribute more than $70 million toward the 2022 midterm elections, according to campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets. The indictment claims that Bankman-Fried and his co-conspirators "made over 300 political contributions, totaling tens of millions of dollars, that were unlawful because they were made in the name of a straw donor or paid for with corporate funds." "To avoid certain contributions being publicly reported in his name, Bankman-Fried conspired to and did have certain political contributions made in the names of two other FTX executives," the new filing claims.
The document refers to one such example, in 2022, when Bankman-Fried and "others agreed that he and his co-conspirators should contribute at least a million dollars to a super PAC that was supporting a candidate running for a United States Congressional seat and appeared to be affiliated with pro-LGBTQ issues." The group of conspirators, according to the document, selected an individual only identified in the document as "CC-1" or co-conspirator 1, to be the donor. However, in 2022, then-FTX Director of Engineering Nishad Singh contributed $1.1 million to the LGBTQ Victory Fund Federal PAC, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
SBF's alleged campaign finance scheme included efforts to keep his contributions to Republicans "dark," according to the new indictment. And, the alleged straw donor scheme was coordinated, at least in part, "through an encrypted, auto-deleting Signal chat called 'Donation Processing,'" according to the indictment. The document says another unnamed co-conspirator "who publicly aligned himself with conservatives, made contributions to Republican candidates that were directed by Bankman-Fried and funded by Alameda," the crypto tycoon's hedge fund. Again, the document does do not name the alleged second FTX co-conspirator who contributed to Republican candidates.
The indictment alleges that Bankman-Fried and his allies allegedly tried to "further conceal the scheme" by recording "the outgoing wire transfers from Alameda to individuals' bank accounts for purposes of making contributions as Alameda 'loans' or 'expenses.'" The document says that "while employees at Alameda generally tracked loans to executives, the transfers to Bankman-Fried, CC-1, and CC-2 in the months before the 2022 midterm elections were not recorded on internal Alameda tracking spreadsheets." The internal Alameda spreadsheets, however, "noted over $100 million in political contributions, even though FEC records reflect no political contributions by Alameda for the 2022 midterm elections to candidates or PACs."
The document refers to one such example, in 2022, when Bankman-Fried and "others agreed that he and his co-conspirators should contribute at least a million dollars to a super PAC that was supporting a candidate running for a United States Congressional seat and appeared to be affiliated with pro-LGBTQ issues." The group of conspirators, according to the document, selected an individual only identified in the document as "CC-1" or co-conspirator 1, to be the donor. However, in 2022, then-FTX Director of Engineering Nishad Singh contributed $1.1 million to the LGBTQ Victory Fund Federal PAC, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
SBF's alleged campaign finance scheme included efforts to keep his contributions to Republicans "dark," according to the new indictment. And, the alleged straw donor scheme was coordinated, at least in part, "through an encrypted, auto-deleting Signal chat called 'Donation Processing,'" according to the indictment. The document says another unnamed co-conspirator "who publicly aligned himself with conservatives, made contributions to Republican candidates that were directed by Bankman-Fried and funded by Alameda," the crypto tycoon's hedge fund. Again, the document does do not name the alleged second FTX co-conspirator who contributed to Republican candidates.
The indictment alleges that Bankman-Fried and his allies allegedly tried to "further conceal the scheme" by recording "the outgoing wire transfers from Alameda to individuals' bank accounts for purposes of making contributions as Alameda 'loans' or 'expenses.'" The document says that "while employees at Alameda generally tracked loans to executives, the transfers to Bankman-Fried, CC-1, and CC-2 in the months before the 2022 midterm elections were not recorded on internal Alameda tracking spreadsheets." The internal Alameda spreadsheets, however, "noted over $100 million in political contributions, even though FEC records reflect no political contributions by Alameda for the 2022 midterm elections to candidates or PACs."
Contest! (Score:1)
Who can think of the best antacronym for "SBF"?
Also: (Score:1)
What does it mean when you allege that someone allegedly did something?
Re:Also: (Score:5, Funny)
It means lawyers, that's what it means.
Re:Contest! (Score:5, Funny)
"Someone's Bitch Forever"
"Some Body's Fucked"
"Seriously Bad Financials"
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Super Big Fraud
A fairy tale story for kids of all ages (Score:1)
Chat disconnected............
Re:Wonder when he will get pardoned... (Score:5, Funny)
No wonder they keep losing.
Re: Wonder when he will get pardoned... (Score:2)
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SBF bribed Republicans and bankrolled their campaigns.
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Also Trump blames everyone else for giving him bad advice. He even blamed Melania for suggesting Herschel Walker. Any stable genius who can't do a minimal amount of vetting before endorsing someone is neither genius nor stable.
(What is it about Georgia? Major senate candidate who lives in Texas, and an infamous congress member who also doesn't live in the district that elected her. I can only assume that Georgia loves carpetbaggers.)
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SBF has said straight out in interviews he gave Republican politicians almost as much money, just under the table.
And from the charges [courtlistener.com] it's clear he did, as well as other dark donations - BANK.MAN-FRIED, however, did not want to be known as a left-leaning partisan, or to have his name publicly attached to Republican candidates. In those instances when he wanted to obscure his association with certain contributions, BANKMAN-FRIED and others conspired to and did have those contributions made in the names of C
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Why don't you read what I said. His new criminal charges line up with what he admitted.
Re: Wonder when he will get pardoned... (Score:2)
The charges make no sense to me. Last I checked Signal wasnâ(TM)t a donation platform. You can track actual donations to politicians on a number of websites, money canâ(TM)t just appear out of nowhere. Point me to the money transfer, which you can do for most of SBFs donations.
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It's reasonable to assume the investigators have the evidence and cooperating witnesses to corroborate what the charges show - that he funnelled money to politicians through proxies and some of it was under the table, through super PACs and such like
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SuperPACs are one of the most litigated entities. Nobody wants money appearing on the books out of nowhere. There must be a money trail.
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Neither Cheney nor Kizinger are "assistant Democrats." Cheney is 3072% more conservative than libral Trump. The only flaw with those two is that they are honest enough to recognize that Trump committed crimes and were unwilling to cover up it. If your quarterback is accused of snorting coke you should stop backing that quarterback or seek to get him help, instead of doubling down on the stupid sports game and painting your face a second layer of red.
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Since this guy was the one dude that solely stopped the Red Wave with his political donations...
Weird claim, since in the general election he didn't [wsj.com] donate [forbes.com] shit [slate.com]...
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Anyone who thinks he "solely" stopped the red wave with his paltry contributions is a moron. He contributed to both, but on the R side a lot of those contributions remain secret. But no, the myth is that he's super rich, his parents are super duper rich, and his parents are also part of the Democratic illuminati pedo ring who have personally kissed Hillary's ass. Really, you can allege any sort of ridiculous notion on Fox and people will lap it up.
Straw donors are people, my friend (Score:3)
They have rights too, you know.
It's in the name (Score:2)
Legalized bribery (Score:4, Insightful)
We gotta limit or cap campaign donations. Our system is a laughing stock to other democracies.
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I'm okay with campaign contributions, so long as the contributions are anonymous, are all added to a common pool, and the pool is evenly distributed among all candidates that satisfy the registration process. That would most effectively and honestly address the most common bullshit excuse for bribery: "I'm supporting the political process".
No candidate should be able to use any money for campaigning that did not come from that common pool. It should be an immediate prison sentence for giving money or other
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I'm okay with campaign contributions, so long as the contributions are anonymous, are all added to a common pool, and the pool is evenly distributed among all candidates that satisfy the registration process.
The whole reason I donate to a political candidate (and we're talking coffee money - I'm not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination) is as the political equivalent of the "like button". My contribution is a way of expressing that I think this candidate represents at least some of my political views and I hope that my donation helps them buy a refill for their stapler, or something.
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Then you've got it backwards. _Voting_ is your "like button." There are likely many much-better qualified candidates for political office that do not and will not ever have the money to get elected, so the elections are dominated by those with the money. And unfortunately there is a correlation between those with money and negative leadership qualities like malignant narcissism, sociopathy, psychopathy, etc.
I've long wondered if we could get better outcomes (meaning: politicians working for the welfar
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So you might as well just ban private donations and publicly fund elections....
I'm perfectly fine with that. Everything has problems, but I can't imagine any funding system being worse than the brazen bribery of public officials that we have now.
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Seriously, what kind of fucked country do we live in that so blatantly and proactively tilts the balance in favor of the rich becoming richer?
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The rich purchased the SCOTUS they wanted, who then unsurprisingly kissed up to the rich.
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"Repeal" is incorrect, as we are talking about a legal precedent and not a law. The verb you're looking for is "overturn." Which would, of course, not be consistent with the first amendment. As long as "money" can be equated to speech (and let's be honest, it has to be, because it costs money to get your message out) then it's nonsensical to suggest that individuals acting in concert (i.e. "corporate entities") somehow give up their rights.
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You gotta repeal Citizens United.
And Buckley vs Valeo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Legal shenanigans (Score:3)
The indictment claims that Bankman-Fried and his co-conspirators "made over 300 political contributions, totaling tens of millions of dollars, that were unlawful because they were made in the name of a straw donor or paid for with corporate funds."
I'd have assumed the unlawful part would be customers' funds being misappropriated, not because SBF didn't want his name on the donation. I thought it was pretty much standard practice for companies to do that sort of thing for legitimate reasons when buying up land (Disney did it back in the day), strange that for political donations it's considered illegal. The Citizens United verdict determined that unlimited political contributions are protected free speech, so what difference does it really make?
Again, so no one gets the wrong idea about what I'm saying:
Taking money that doesn't belong to you and donating it to political campaigns = bad
Desiring privacy regarding your political beliefs when you donate legitimately obtained money to a political campaign = good
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"I'd have assumed the unlawful part would be customers' funds being misappropriated, not because SBF didn't want his name on the donation."
Misappropriating custodial funds is an entirely separate violation, independent of how those funds were used. Structuring political contributions is an entirely separate violation, independent of how those funds were obtained. It can be two things.
"The Citizens United verdict determined that unlimited political contributions are protected free speech"
The Citizens United
Adding charges after extradition? (Score:2)
This was discussed in the Assange case,
https://accuracy.org/release/c... [accuracy.org]
Apparently there could
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There's nothing fundamentally wrong with adding charges after extradition.
Extradition processes rely only on the charges in question being illegal in both countries and a treaty existing between them to allow extradition. They don't grant immunity against other crimes which may have been committed beyond the one used for extradition. The mediating factor is how the person will be treated by the system in the target country. You can heap another 1000 charges on Assange and it doesn't change the fairness test
His only crime (Score:1)
Was fleecing the dumb and rich, laundering the money and maybe a little tax evasion on the side.
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Yeah his only crime is fraud and money laundering. How is that illegal! /s
He's going away for a long time (Score:2)
Even before today the combination of the charges against him would net him up to 120 years in prison (if maximum penalties are applied, and given the amount of money involved...).
I feel nothing for the cunt who spent his time rubbing his wealth in other people's face. I wish him all the best and remind him to take some lube.