NEW YORK — Disgraced crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to a host of new federal charges Thursday.
The fallen FTX founder appeared in Manhattan Federal Court after traveling from Palo Alto, California, where he’s under house arrest at his parent’s place on a $250 million bond.
Bankman-Fried, 31, pleaded not guilty to charges alleging he bribed Chinese officials $40 million to unfreeze over $1 billion in crypto assets, campaign finance crimes, and multiple securities and commodities fraud charges through his lawyer Mark Cohen.
Cohen planned to argue that Bankman-Fried should not face charges brought after his December extradition from the Bahamas, where FTX was based. The five charges he pleaded to Thursday add to eight he had already pleaded not guilty to.
The feds have described the case against Bankman-Fried as one of the largest financial frauds in history. He’s accused of diverting billions in customer deposits from his crypto trading platform FTX to his crypto hedge fund Alameda Research.
He’s further accused of pumping millions of dollars into the U.S. political system to influence cryptocurrency legislation in Washington.
Bankman-Fried had no comment leaving court. He faces up to185 years in prison.
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