Sam Bankman-Fried Will Plead Not Guilty to Fraud Charges, Faces 115 Years if Convicted: Report

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried will reportedly plead not guilty to fraud charges relating to the collapse of the crypto exchange late last year.

According to a report from Reuters, Bankman-Fried will enter a not guilty plea to criminal charges that he defrauded investors and misappropriated billions of dollars from the exchange.

The former crypto billionaire is facing allegations of illegally using FTX customer deposits to fund his trading firm Alameda Research, donate to politicians and pay for highly illiquid investments.

Bankman-Fried will appear in court on Tuesday, January 3rd before U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan to enter the plea.

Currently, Bankman-Fried is under GPS-monitored house arrest in California on a $250 million bond secured by the equity in his family home along with the signatures of his parents and two unnamed individuals who have sizeable assets.

Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, has entered a guilty plea and agreed to cooperate with investigators.

Ellison admitted to being aware that FTX used customer funds to finance loans to Alameda.

“I understood that FTX would need to use customer funds to finance its loans to Alameda…Most FTX customers did not expect that FTX would lend their digital asset holdings and fiat currency deposits to Alameda in this fashion…

I understood that if Alameda’s FTX accounts had significant balances in a particular currency, it meant that Alameda was borrowing funds that FTX’s customers had deposited on the exchange.”

If convicted to the fullest extent of all charges, Bankman-Fried faces 115 years in prison, according to the report.

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