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Bitcoin The Courts Crime

Sam Bankman-Fried Pleads Not Guilty To Federal Fraud Charges In New York (cnbc.com) 56

Posted by BeauHD from the latest-developments dept.
Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty in New York federal court Tuesday to eight charges related to the collapse of his former crypto exchange FTX and hedge fund Alameda Research. CNBC reports: The onetime crypto billionaire was indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and securities fraud, individual charges of securities fraud and wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to avoid campaign finance regulations. The trial will begin on Oct. 2. [...] Earlier in the day, attorneys for Bankman-Fried filed a motion to seal the names of two individuals who had guaranteed Bankman-Fried release on bail with a bond. They claimed that the visibility of the case and the defendant had already posed a risk to Bankman-Fried's parents, and that the guarantors should not be subject to the same scrutiny. [Judge Lewis Kaplan] approved the motion in court. Federal prosecutor Danielle Sassoon told the court that Bankman-Fried had worked with foreign regulators to transfer assets that FTX's U.S. management had been attempting to recover through the Chapter 11 bankruptcy process.

Regulators in the Bahamas and FTX's U.S. lawyers have been fighting for weeks in Delaware bankruptcy court over hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars worth of cryptocurrency. FTX's attorneys insist that Bahamian regulators have illicitly transferred hundreds of millions of dollars, and that Bankman-Fried assisted them. Bahamian regulators say that local laws give them jurisdiction over those assets, and dispute the validity of the U.S. Chapter 11 proceedings. Federal prosecutors appear to agree with FTX's U.S. attorneys. Sassoon asked Kaplan to impose a new restriction barring Bankman-Fried from transferring or accessing FTX customer assets. The judge approved that motion as well.

The U.S. attorney's office for the SDNY had argued that Bankman-Fried used $8 billion worth of customer assets for extravagant real estate purchases and vanity projects, including stadium naming rights and millions in political donations. Federal prosecutors built the indictment against Bankman-Fried with unusual speed, packaging together the criminal charges against the 30-year-old in a matter of weeks. The federal charges came alongside complaints from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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Sam Bankman-Fried Pleads Not Guilty To Federal Fraud Charges In New York More

Sam Bankman-Fried Pleads Not Guilty To Federal Fraud Charges In New York

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  • I wouldn't want to be in shoes when the amphetamines wear off.

    • after failing the drug test in the prison he will go to the SHO

      • I don't think he belongs in prison.

        Like most of the business-criminals on Wall St., it seems he thought he was just playing a video game.

        Because of the needless centrality of the monetary system, it means that when the big red screen comes up a la Missile Command that says "THE END", people's lives are ruined. (See also, the Ontario Teacher's Pension Fund).

        Its completely unnecessary in a civilized society.

        • No, it's what prison SHOULD be for.

          • Prison teaches one how to respond to violence with violence.

            Until they break you.

            And if they don't, one winds up with a WAY more dangerous character out on the street.

            --
            The job of Justice is to reduce violence in society--not increase it!

            • He's a white-collar criminal.
            • This doofus will end up in a minimum security joint.

              • Perhaps, but he WILL do time. Enough people with real money were harmed and they'll want their pound of flesh. The political favors he paid for aren't worth anything now due to all the media exposure.

                What's the over/under on him mysteriously dying in prison?

                • I don't see him getting Epsteined. Madoff screwed over more politically powerful people and ran a bigger scam. Lost funds are not the same kind of embarrassment as sexually abusing teenage girls. Funny how nobody else has been charged in connection to Epstein's pedo ring.

              • I checked the Inmate Security Designation and Custody Classification manual [bop.gov] and I get either 5 or 8 points, enough for minimum but this one isn't my bailiwick so I could be wrong. He'll probably end up in either a minimum or low. Either way, it's going to be dormitory-style sleeping. But it's still going to be prison.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by znrt ( 2424692 )

          at the end of the day, you're right, but nor should the zillion poor (mostly black) kids that were caught smoking a joint and who actually feed the prison industry every day. even if he mainly scammed stupid and greedy rich people this guy had everything and just wanted more, with total disregard of the harm he might do. he is at the other end of my empathy scale.

          anyway, he somehow has some strings to pull and for now has gotten himself a corrupt judge, so he will probably get away with it.

          • Agreed. So I can actually get to sleep "at the end of the day" is what matters to me.

            99% of the problems in America can be traced back to the monetary system, its so-called "industries" (not), and the relentless drive to rip ppl off and hurt them in order to "live a good life".

        • Just to speak in terms of videogames.
          I think SBF will have enough time to play games in prison.

        • The problem is that the people in this video game are real and they really lose their real money.

          He doesn't belong in prison, he belongs in a organ transplant ward.

          As the donor. Maybe that way we can recover some of the damage he did.

    • You think he'll get away using that defense? He committed the biggest crime possible in America: He ripped off the wealthy and connected. You can rob, even kill, poor people in America. Look at Madoff, at best that is SBF's fate.

  • He's either an idiot or a useful idiot.

    • Both if what I hear about the political kickbacks via campaign donations he was involved. How was he even getting away with it without someone noticing? Looks like he was buying protection until it got to big to not fail.

      • Both if what I hear about the political kickbacks via campaign donations he was involved. How was he even getting away with it without someone noticing? Looks like he was buying protection until it got to big to not fail.

        Or he was running a company in a very poorly regulated industry meaning that no one outside of senior executives had any real way to know what was going on.

  • Makes sense. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Petersko ( 564140 )

    The leftover detritus of his escapades is still more than enough to mount an expensive defense. Lucky for him, in the US the system is openly and publicly "for sale". You can get exactly as much "justice" as you can afford. For poor people that's the overworked public defender. For rich people it's the dream team.

    In fact, it's so blatantly for sale nobody even notices it much any more. There's no expectation of equality across classes of defendants.

    • You forget FTX's attorneys, who will do their best to claw back any money he got, and FTX will of course not pay for the defence of their criminal ex-CEO.

      • When he shows up with the public defender I'll happily concede the point.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mysidia ( 191772 )

          He probably foresaw the charges in advance and put the lawyers on retainer with advanced payments.

          TBH They should have it as one of the Bail conditions that he cannot engage in any cryptocurrency transaction Or financial transaction or combination of transfers totalling more than $1000 on his own behalf or anyone else's, And neither can any company or trust he is the principal or beneficiary Of, without order by the court for that transaction and issue a restraining order to that effect.

          Any money he has r

    • Lucky for him, in the US the system is openly and publicly "for sale".

      It's only for sale for people who don't piss off those in charge. Enron, Theranos, Nikola Motors, all show that it doesn't matter if you're rich if you piss off the right amount of people.

      SBF is going to jail.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Millions in donations to Democrats (and leftist causes) says he'll do no time.

      • Those who you list are the outliers who went so far off the deep end that Lady Justice had to actually polish her spectacles. For the vast majority of people, I believe my point is defensible - more money, better outcomes. I don't deny that SBF is in for a rough ride. My contention is he'll do better than otherwise because he can afford expensive lawyers.

  • Maximize the synergy! (Score:5, Funny)

    by puddingebola ( 2036796 ) on Tuesday January 03, 2023 @06:48PM (#63177916) Journal
    By maximizing the synergies of cryptocurrency monetization, economic growth can occur with zero inflationary expansion in a post-reality nonregulated environment of super conductive growth while avoiding neo-entropic destabilizing market forces that would ordinarily cause mass corrections of over valued diegetic assets but cannot because of the super attenuated consciousnesses of the collective investor body's nonbelief in real world exchange of goods and services!
  • This is just the first step in making a plea deal.
  • First, in order to avoid confusion: FTX's attorneys are the attorneys of the bankruptcy handlers (the ones who handled Enron), and their job is to hand as much money as possible to the legitimate owners. They will also try to grab as much as possible from Friedman's ill-gotten gains.

    And the Bermudas, quite understandable, want a bit of the pie. They'd rather take that money themselves. So fun is had everywhere except by the idiots who invested.

  • Bankman-Fried stole from the rich. If he wanted to get away clean, he should have gone down south and stolen from a welfare fund.

  • Remember how much time Ollie North served in total? Remember how his limited immunity deal was the ultimate factor in that?*

    If SBF can offer up meaningful dirt on some unpopular Democrats and Republicans, and get the ear of some extra ambitious Committee members, he might get them to offer him immunity for the specific crime of bribery.

    While it's possible the DOJ would squeeze him to cough that info up, I don't see that as likely. SBF might try making leaks to the media, and indicating he'll talk to Congres

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