The U.S. Department of Justice has announced that they will only try FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried on the eight charges they brought in December 2022. In a letter addressed to Judge Lewis Kaplan, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams and his team wrote that the Bahamas court fight may not end until near Bankman-Fried’s trial in the U.S.
In light of the uncertainty concerning when The Bahamas will render a decision with respect to specialty, and to simplify the proof at trial and decrease the burden of trial preparation on the defendant, the Government is prepared to proceed to trial as scheduled on the counts contained in the original Indictment, the letter said.
The original charges include counts one (conspiracy to commit wire fraud on customers of FTX), two (wire fraud on customers of FTX), three (conspiracy to commit fraud on FTX customers tied to derivatives), five (conspiracy to commit securities fraud against FTX investors), seven (conspiracy to commit wire fraud on lenders to Alameda Research), eight (wire fraud on lenders to Alameda Research), 11 (conspiracy to commit money laundering) and 12 (conspiracy to make unlawful political contributions and defraud the Federal Elections Commission). Bankman-Fried is currently set to go to trial this October.
A second letter filed by prosecutors on Wednesday night addressed claims previously made by Bankman-Fried’s team alleging the DOJ had failed to provide all of the discovery materials requested. According to this second letter, the DOJ believes it had provided most of those discovery materials, but said it faced delays for various reasons including technical issues.