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Crime United States

Sam Bankman-Fried's Extradition Approved by Judge (wsj.com) 27

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried will soon be in U.S. custody to face criminal charges connected to the collapse of the crypto exchange, after a judge here approved his transfer from a local jail where he has been held. From a report: Mr. Bankman-Fried agreed not to contest his extradition, and in court Wednesday his lawyer read an affidavit in which the former executive waived his right to extradition proceedings and said he had "a desire to make the relevant customers whole." When asked by Magistrate Judge Shaka Serville if the affidavit was his and represented his wishes, Mr. Bankman-Fried said, "Yes, I do wish to waive my right to formal extradition proceedings." He also told the judge he was healthy and doing well.

His lawyer, Jerone Roberts, said his client's reasons were clear. "It has always been his desire to put customers right," he said. Mr. Roberts said Mr. Bankman-Fried "is anxious to leave" and asked that he be transported to the U.S. on Wednesday. The former FTX chief executive has been in a jail in the Bahamas since his arrest last week on charges he stole billions of dollars from customers while misleading lenders and investors. Federal prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York have charged Mr. Bankman-Fried, 30 years old, with eight criminal counts, including fraud, conspiracy and money-laundering offenses.
Alternative, non-paywalled source: The Block.
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Sam Bankman-Fried's Extradition Approved by Judge

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  • Now he's not going to get the chance to answer though questions from Congress. It's a prosecutor's wet dream to let the accused incriminate themselves prior to pressing charges to bolster their case. For some reason this case is different.
    • don't drop the soap.

    • Not a political issue, so I'm filing that as a lousy FP. In this case it's rather obvious that SBF thinks his best bet is to play innocent. I don't think he's really that sincerely stupid, but he might be a true believer in the imaginary value of cryptocurrencies. Billions of dollars of grand delusions? Seems to be stretching the ignorance defense pretty hard, but intentional ignorance can be quite robust.

      If you want to get political, then I'll offer you 50 cents for that NFT you just paid 99 bucks for. The

    • They want you to think this is a political issue because something big happened and maybe we can spin it to make the other side look bad. It worked. Thankyou for your co-operation.

      • I think it's more like the cross-linking of the "save the whales" newsgroup with... Darn I can't even remember my ancient history of the Internet. What were the main newsgroups involved in that kerfuffle?

        Losing your memory is the second symptom of senility, but I can't remember the first one?

      • They want you to think this is a political issue because something big happened and maybe we can spin it to make the other side look bad. It worked. Thankyou for your co-operation.

        Perhaps the Dumbocraps will blame the existence of Sam Beavis-Fried on the Republicats...as usual !

    • by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2022 @01:51PM (#63148318)

      I really don't get the political angle here. This guy was a terribly dumb criminal and gave money to political campaigns? Is there some conspiracy theory I'm not seeing?

      • by GlennC ( 96879 )

        Is there some conspiracy theory I'm not seeing?

        The only one I can think of is that "our side" is the epitome of all things Good and American, while "their side" is nothing but evil reptilian monsters who must be defeated at any cost.

      • Merrick Garland decided to indict SBF which is highly unusual considering he was about to speak to congress and have to answer tough questions regarding his donations to the democrats. Prosecutors would love nothing more than someone speaking out in the open regarding potential crimes making indictment that much easier. SBF is criminal, don't get me wrong. It's just that we all missed a great opportunity to hear him answer tough questions from congress.
        • Yeah, all those hard hitting and difficult questions that hit Zuckerberg and changed so much! Oh he had so much to fear! You realize it's just theater for the masses?
        • by tsqr ( 808554 )

          You know that SBF also made huge contributions to Republicans, right? Who was going to ask those "tough questions"?

          Congressional inquiries rarely go very deep when the subject is contributions - far too many dirty hands.

      • I'm not sure where you get to terribly dumb. The guy talked investors into contributing billions to his scam, and paid off politicians to look the other way. This is the American Dream of the 21st century. I think what took down the house of cards was trusting that the guys at Binance would help a player out instead of leaving him with the empty bag.
      • by mjwx ( 966435 )

        I really don't get the political angle here. This guy was a terribly dumb criminal and gave money to political campaigns? Is there some conspiracy theory I'm not seeing?

        Well, people who can no longer defend the Republicans are jumping on anything slightly negative of the Dems to say "look, LOOK, tHeYrE aS BaD aS EaChOtHeR!!1!!11!!ONE!!!ELEVEN!!!!".

    • Now he's not going to get the chance to answer though questions from Congress.

      Yes, by Democrats to whom he publicly donated money and Republicans to whom he secretly donated money. From ... How 62 members of Congress took donations from fallen crypto king SBF ... [dailymail.co.uk] (and many other sources):

      Bankman-Fried publicly donated some $46.5 million in the 2022 election cycle, with all but about $240,000 going to Democrats.

      He says he donated an almost equal amount to Republicans but did so through dark money channels so reporters wouldn't 'freak the f*** out'.

      Prosecutors now claim Bankman-Fried tried to bilk investors out of more than $1.8 billion and used customer funds to make illegal political donations to 52 Democrats, 10 Republicans, 50 Democrat-affiliated groups, three nonpartisan and three conservative groups.

      That information may be incomplete but, if it's accurate, if he gave about the same amount of money for Democrats and Republicans, then he gave to a larger number of Democrats but gave more to each Republican. And by "gave" I'm implying "bribed" as he was also lobbying Congress to *not* impose regu

    • Now he's not going to get the chance to answer though questions from Congress. It's a prosecutor's wet dream to let the accused incriminate themselves prior to pressing charges to bolster their case. For some reason this case is different.

      So a Democratically controlled Congress invited SBF to speak, and a Democratically controlled DOJ arrested (and now extradited) him, and you think this is all some sort of Democratic plot to stop SBF from talking and let him escape justice?

      Now I think the DOJ timing is weird, though I suspect it's something more benign like the DOJ not wanting to give the appearance that the Congressional Committee was the one driving the prosecution (ie, don't give the impression the case is actually political).

      As for "inc

    • Tough questions like, "How much seed capital do you need to pay back all those people and where do you want the US government to deposit it?"
  • As per the WallStreetOnParade article today titled "Sam Bankman-Fried’s Criminal Trial Judge Is Married to Law Partner of Firm that Arranged the FTX-BlockFi Deal", he has effectively been "judge shopping". The site says: > Greg Andres is part of Ronnie Abrams’ immediate household and a law partner of Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, a law firm that has problematic ties to Bankman-Fried’s bankrupt crypto exchange, FTX, and another crypto firm it became enmeshed with, BlockFi, which is als

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