The life of Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the imploded crypto exchange FTX, isn’t getting any easier. On Tuesday afternoon, the news came that US prosecutors have reversed an earlier decision to drop campaign-finance charges. They will seek a conviction on these grounds when the case goes to trial in the fall.
Bankman-Fried, known as SBF, ironically was once a source to whom media such as New York Magazine turned for expert commentary on the crypto market. As a result of the Tuesday decision, the fallen entrepreneur will face a cocktail of felony charges, incorporating campaign finance fraud along with money laundering and wire fraud.
Sam Bankman-Fried Briefly Evaded Fraud Charge After Extradition
As detailed in a CNBC report, US prosecutors had reluctantly dropped the campaign finance charge on a technicality. Authorities in the Bahamas had not included that offense in the counts providing a basis for their extradition of SBF. Hence, in accordance with the extradition treaty, lawyers in New York could not pursue that charge.
Government lawyers have been highly vindictive toward SBF. The campaign to incarcerate him until his trial starts in the fall has gathered force in recent weeks.
SBF’s lawyers have fought tooth and nail to rebut charges of evidence tampering and witness intimidation. They argue that keeping SBF locked up ahead of his trial would deprive him of internet access. Thus unfairly crippling his ability to mount a defense.
It does not minimize SBF’s charges to say that CEOs accused of even more serious offenses have received relatively lenient treatment. Elizabeth Holmes, the founder and CEO of blood-testing firm Theranos, did not languish in jail before her trial.
Nor, indeed, until many months after her prosecution for having misled investors, the media, and the public.
A disparity that will lead some to ask whether crypto entrepreneurs, like SBF, are the victim of a double standard. And to wonder whether officials have once again gone too far, in their sheer zeal to punish what they do not understand.
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