Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the founder and former CEO of FTX, is seeking to have up to 10 criminal charges against him dismissed by the courts several months ahead of his scheduled criminal trial in October.
Request is on virtually all charges
On May 8, the SBF legal team filed court documents in New York’s Southern District Court requesting that virtually all charges be dismissed except 3: conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. commit.
Extradition from Bahamas to US
The crypto researcher Molly White, in response to this move, suggested that “part of the reason seems to be that additional costs were added after the SBF extradition deal was made.”
SBF was originally extradited from the Bahamas to the US to face 8 criminal charges for alleged fraud and money laundering. However, according to his legal team, the four of the five additional charges added since February “violate Convention rules on specialty provision.”
The “rule of specialty” typically requires the requesting state (in this case the US) to prosecute the extradited defendant (SBF) only for the crime for which he was extradited.
According to SBF’s lawyers, during the extradition procedure in the Bahamas, it was agreed that the specialty provisions would apply, despite the use of the simplified procedure. All parties in the court, coram judice, and the court itself had expressly acknowledged that the specialty rule applied and there was no waiver of this principle.
Also trying to dismiss other charges
SBF’s legal team is also trying to dismiss other charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and charges related to wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. According to them, no adequate crime has been reported in these cases.
The original indictment sent via diplomatic note, according to SBF’s attorneys, did not “properly specify the violation” related to campaign finance laws, nor does it “refer” to any U.S. bank accounts, including any bank accounts affiliated with FTX or Alameda, with regarding wire fraud charges.
SBF faces charges of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and other individual fraud charges related to his alleged actions at FTX and Alameda. He is also charged with bribing a Chinese government official worth $40 million in the most recent indictment on March 28.
On June 15, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan will hear arguments on this motion for dismissal, and prosecutors have until May 29 to respond.
SBF says it is not guilty
While the other members of SBF’s inner circle plead guilty and are willing to cooperate with prosecutors, SBF itself has stated that it is not guilty of the charges against him.
SBF has been under house arrest with his parents in Palo Alto since December. Most recently, Judge Kaplan agreed to wiretap SBF’s parents’ phone calls as a way to satisfy the terms of his bail, despite a request from SBF’s legal team for a review of this decision.