Array
/NEW YORK – U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday accused Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of crypto currency exchange FTX, of fraud and violating campaign finance laws and a judge in the Bahamas denied him bail, sending him to a local correctional facility instead.
The former FTX CEO, who was arrested in the Bahamas on Monday, lowered his head and hugged his parents after the magistrate judge refused bail citing a “great” risk of flight.
He was ordered remanded to a correctional facility in the island nation until Feb. 8, where he will be initially held in the medical department, according to a local official.
The day’s events capped a stunning fall from grace in recent weeks for the 30-year-old, who amassed a fortune valued over $20 billion as he rode a cryptocurrency boom to build FTX into one of the world’s largest exchanges before it abruptly collapsed this year.
Bankman-Fried has previously apologized to customers and acknowledged oversight failings at FTX, but said he does not personally think he has any criminal liability.
Earlier on Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams in New York said Bankman-Fried made illegal campaign contributions to Democrats and Republicans with “stolen customer money,” saying it was part of one of the “biggest financial frauds in American history.”
“While this is our first public announcement, it will not be our last,” he said, adding Bankman-Fried “made tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions.”
Bankman-Fried faces a maximum sentence of 115 years in prison if convicted on all eight counts, prosecutors said, though any sentence would depend on a range of factors.
Williams declined to say whether prosecutors would bring charges against other FTX executives and whether any FTX insiders were cooperating with the investigation.
