The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has stated in a letter that they still plan to argue that Sam Bankman-Fried conducted an illegal campaign finance scheme when he goes to trial in October. Prosecutors will file a superseding indictment next week bringing seven charges against Bankman-Fried for the October trial, excluding only a campaign finance charge that the DOJ dropped to comply with the U.S.’s extradition treaty with the Bahamas.
However, the DOJ plans to fold the campaign finance allegations into a wire fraud charge. The DOJ said, The superseding indictment will make clear that Mr. Bankman-Fried remains charged with conducting an illegal campaign finance scheme as part of the fraud and money laundering schemes originally charged. They added that the use of customer deposits for campaigns fall into the wire fraud allegations brought in the original indictment.
The DOJ also noted that evidence of Bankman-Fried’s campaign finance conduct is admissible at trial as direct proof of the Trial Charges. Bankman-Fried is currently set to go on trial on October 2, 2023, with another trial scheduled for March 2024 for additional charges brought across multiple superseding indictments.