Bankman-Fried was candid in his prepared statements for the hearing when describing his predicament. Nevertheless, Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas and charged with wire/securities fraud and money laundering.
According to the New York Times, SBF was charged with wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy, and money laundering in an indictment that will be unsealed on Tuesday. Of course, SBF should be prosecuted with excessive talking and adding 15 years to his sentence as a megalomaniac sociopath, but we would settle for attempted bribery of the whole Democratic Party.
A lawyer interjects, saying that SBF may receive a sentence of up to 612,000 years in jail under federal sentencing guidelines.
Although more than 500,000 years behind bars may seem exorbitant, life in prison for the disgraced Democratic donor appears to be about appropriate.
Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York told the Washington Examiner earlier this month that he gave the money he obtained from Bankman-Fried to a local charity. However, that won’t change the fact that Sam Bankman-Fried donated to democrats so that they could lobby against crypto regulation.
And, given that SBF was the sole person named in the indictment, it looks that everyone who predicted that his coworker (and former lover) Caroline Ellison would turn on him were correct.
According to a statement from Sen. Ryan Pinder KC, the Attorney General of The Bahamas, Sam Bankman-Fried was detained by the Royal Bahamian Police Force just hours after he refused to show up for a Senate hearing on his part in the demise of FTX.
The arrest happened after the US brought criminal charges against Bankman-Fried. US prosecutors say they will unseal an indictment on Tuesday.
It begs the question of timing, as this occurred barely a week after Carline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Capital, was observed in New York (not in detention) and sought counsel, represented by the DC law firm WilmerHale.
Did his girlfriend toss him under the bus before the ‘Simple Jack’ defense gained traction?
Additionally, the statement noted that the country anticipates the US requesting Bankman-Fried’s extradition in the near future.
“As a result of the notification received and the material provided therewith, it was deemed appropriate for the Attorney General to seek SBF’s arrest and hold him in custody pursuant to our nation’s Extradition Act.
At such time as a formal request for extradition is made, The Bahamas intends to process it promptly, pursuant to Bahamian law and its treaty obligations with the United States.”
This shouldn’t have come as a shock given that the current FTX CEO, John Ray, stated in prepared remarks that FTX has ‘commingled’ assets…
In response to SBF’s arrest, Prime Minister Davis stated:
“The Bahamas and the United States have a shared interest in holding accountable all individuals associated with FTX who may have betrayed the public trust and broken the law. While the United States is pursuing criminal charges against SBF individually, The Bahamas will continue its own regulatory and criminal investigations into the collapse of FTX, with the continued cooperation of its law enforcement and regulatory partners in the United States and elsewhere.”
We can infer from this that he will not be present at the Congressional hearing with Maxine Waters tomorrow, which is unfortunate because we would have loved to hear some answers.
Bankman-Fried was candid in his prepared statements for the hearing when describing his predicament.
“I would like to start by formally stating under oath: I f*cked up,” he said in the remarks obtained by Bloomberg News.
Listed below is the official statement:
He put up $5 billion for Elon to buy Twitter. He’s obviously a genius but seems genuinely confused about where money went…. highly unlikely he had any criminal intent. Dogpiling is a bitch move. People have no idea what actually went down.