FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has denied dishonest cheated buyers and looting buyer deposits from his cryptocurrency buying and selling platform.
Bankman-Fried, 30, is accused of working a “sequence of interrelated fraud schemes” to divert huge sums of buyer cash from FTX to make lavish property purchases, donate “dirty” money to politicians, and make dangerous trades at his Alameda Analysis hedge fund.
He appeared in Manhattan federal court docket on Tuesday to enter an preliminary plea. Talking on his behalf, his lawyer Mark Cohen stated: “He pleads not responsible to all counts.”
Afterwards, Choose Lewis A Kaplan set a tentative trial date of Monday 2 October, when the court docket will hear expenses of wire fraud, commodities fraud, securities fraud, cash laundering, and marketing campaign finance legislation violations.
A federal prosecutor, Danielle Sassoon, estimated {that a} trial might take 4 weeks, and stated the federal government will quickly flip over tons of of hundreds of paperwork of proof to defence legal professionals.
The Massachusetts Institute of Expertise graduate might face a jail sentence of as much as 115 years if convicted on all expenses.
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Motions by the defence and responses to them by prosecutors could be due in April, with an argument over the motions going down on 18 Could.
Bankman-Fried, arrested in the Bahamas a month ago, was beforehand freed on a $250m (£208m) bond on the situation that he awaits trial at his dad and mom’ home in Palo Alto, California.
Previous to his look, Bankman-Fried’s legal professionals despatched a letter to the choose, saying his dad and mom in current weeks have develop into the goal of “intense media scrutiny, harassment, and threats, together with communications expressing a want that they endure bodily hurt”.
The choose granted a request for names to be redacted on court docket paperwork for 2 further people who have been lined as much as signal Bankman-Fried’s private recognisance bond.
The choose additionally imposed a brand new bail situation, saying Bankman-Fried can not entry FTX or Alameda belongings.
Two of Bankman-Fried’s closest associates, Alameda’s chief govt Caroline Ellison, and FTX’s former chief know-how officer Gary Wang, final month pleaded responsible to seven and 4 prison expenses respectively, and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
