Sam Bankman-Fried Will Still Face Campaign Finance-Related Charge, DOJ Says

The U.S. Department of Justice still plans to argue that Sam Bankman-Fried conducted an “illegal campaign finance” scheme when it goes to trial in October, prosecutors said in a letter Tuesday, two weeks after saying they couldn’t bring a campaign finance charge against the FTX founder due to treaty obligations.

Prosecutors will file a superseding indictment next week bringing seven charges against Bankman-Fried for the October trial, the letter said. Each of these charges will be from the original indictment, excluding only a campaign finance charge that the DOJ dropped to comply with the U.S.’s extradition treaty with the Bahamas.

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However, the DOJ plans to fold the campaign finance allegations into a wire fraud charge, the letter addressed to Judge Lewis Kaplan said.

“The superseding indictment will make clear that Mr. Bankman-Fried remains charged with conducting an illegal campaign finance scheme as part of the fraud and money laundering schemes originally charged,” the DOJ said, adding that the use of customer deposits for campaigns fall into the wire fraud allegations brought in the original indictment.

“And as part of the originally charged money laundering scheme, the defendant also concealed the source of his fraudulent proceeds through political straw donations,” the DOJ said. “As the Government will outline in its forthcoming motions in limine, the evidence of the defendant’s campaign finance conduct is admissible at trial as direct proof of the Trial Charges.”

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Bankman-Fried is currently set to go on trial on Oct. 2, 2023, with another trial scheduled for March 2024 for additional charges brought across multiple superseding indictments.