Sam Bankman-Fried scores a legal victory.
The impending criminal trial of FTX's co-founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, will push forward, charging him with the initial eight accusations made against him by US prosecutors.
A letter directed towards Judge Lewis Kaplan by prosecutors from the US Department of Justice (DoJ) confirmed their intent to try Bankman-Fried based on the charges initially brought against him in late 2022.
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This communication was outlined in a legal filing on June 14th.
Bankman-Fried had earlier argued in a motion in the Bahamas, from where he was extradited, that the majority of the 13 charges brought against him were not part of the original indictment.
In response to the potentially protracted process of resolving this matter, the DoJ prosecutors stated they're set to "proceed to trial as scheduled on the counts contained in the original indictment."
It now appears that litigation of that motion will take some time and may not be resolved until near or even after the trial date.
As confirmed by the Bahamas' Supreme Court on June 14th, Bankman-Fried has the right to formally contest the new charges before the nation can consider them valid.
Four more charges concerning fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud were revealed by the DoJ following Bankman-Fried's extradition, and an additional accusation in March proposed bribes given to officials in China.
Bankman-Fried, as the founder and former chief executive of FTX, faced his initial charges in December 2022 due to his management of the collapsed crypto exchange, which declared bankruptcy shortly after experiencing a liquidity crisis in November 2022.
Caroline Ellison, who formerly held the position of CEO at Alameda Research, FTX's sister company, and Gary Wang, another FTX co-founder, admitted to fraud charges related to the crypto exchange's collapse. Despite this, Bankman-Fried insists that management errors, not fraudulent activities, determined the downfall.
