FTX Founder Sam Bankman Fried's Attempt to Dismiss Charges Stumbles in Court
Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the founder and former CEO of the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, made an effort to have several charges against him dismissed in court.
Although the defense team's arguments faced skepticism from the US federal judge in New York, the judge did agree to divide the charges.
According to the judge’s decision, the government will treat some of the charges against Bankman-Fried as part of a different criminal trial.
The decision was made this Thursday, June 15th, by Judge Lewis Kaplan of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
He ruled that five of the charges against SBF could be brought to trial next year in March.
This will allow the Department of Justice to proceed with the trial on only eight charges brought against the FTX founder in December 2022. The current trial is expected to start this fall.
The new ruling comes as SBF’s defense team attempted to get the court to dismiss several charges, including campaign finance charges, wire fraud, and bank fraud.
Judge Kaplan questioned the team about their request but did not grant it.
Speaking to one of Bankman-Fried’s attorneys, he said that he wanted to congratulate them on an “extraordinarily imaginative defense.”
The comment came as the attorney claimed that the DoJ was attempting to insert new legal theories into the prosecution.
Another attorney, Mark Cohen, claimed that the campaign finance charge should be dismissed on a technical detail, or at the very least, it should be severed alongside other charges. He argued,
"The operative document in extradition is the warrant of surrender. It does not list the campaign finance charge."
Cohen pointed out that Bankman-Fried did not consent to be extradited on this charge.
However, the
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