OAN’s Shawntel Smith-Hill
2:54 PM – Thursday, July 27, 2023
United States federal prosecutors have decided on Wednesday to drop campaign finance violation charges against alleged crypto scammer and FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
This comes as Bankman-Fried, 31, is fighting to avoid jail time ahead of his October 2nd trial, where he will face several wire and securities fraud charges, after prosecutors in Manhattan accused him of tampering with witnesses by sharing personal written statements from his former romantic partner and CEO of Alameda Research, Caroline Ellison, with a reporter from the New York Times.
Bankman-Fried is no stranger to precarious situations with the law, and many prosecutors are expecting to see future trials focus on how the now-bankrupt FTX exchange was purportedly stealing billions of dollars from customers.
Notably, this is reportedly the billionaire’s second time having Manhattan prosecutors drop charges against him, despite accusations that he caused the collapse of FTX through a multibillion-dollar fraud.
The Manhattan prosecutors announced to Judge Lewis Kaplan late Wednesday that the one count of making unlawful campaign contributions would be dropped, even though claims stated the FTX founder had illegally instructed associates to donate millions of dollars to political campaigns.
Over 300 illegal donations were allegedly made in an effort to garner the favor of political candidates who could potentially pass laws favoring Bankman-Fried’s company.
It is suspected that he made nearly $40 million in political donations during the 2022 election cycle, according to campaign finance data gathered from the Federal Elections Commission (FEC).
Publicly available records indicate that the bulk of political donations went primarily to support Democrat committees and candidates, with some money being donated to bipartisan campaigns as well.
The decision to drop the charges against Bankman-Fried stemmed from the fact that both he and FTX resided in the Bahamas, and under the U.S.’s extradition treaty with the Bahamas, the island nation must consent to the charges before his extradition.
A letter filed by the prosecutors stated, “Accordingly, in keeping with its treaty obligations to The Bahamas, the Government does not intend to proceed to trial on the campaign contributions count.”
Despite the charges being dropped, he is still facing seven counts of defrauding or conspiring to defraud customers, investors, and lenders in what is being referred to as one of the “biggest financial frauds in American history.”
The alleged crypto scammer has been placed on a $250 million bond and forced to remain at his family’s home in California as he awaits future trials.
Several former FTX executives, including Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang, and Nishad Singh, have all pleaded guilty to federal charges. Even though Bankman-Fried himself acknowledges that FTX had severely poor risk management, he has pleaded not guilty and denies all allegations that he gained billions in stolen funds.
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