The founder of the crypto exchange maintains his innocence in the face of new charges levied by US prosecutors.
Sam Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty in connection with alleged bribery of Chinese officials and of conspiring to violate campaign finance laws at a hearing on 30 March 2023, as reported by «Reuters».
Through his lawyer, Mark Cohen, Bankman-Fried plans to challenge the new charges because they were brought after he was extradited from the Bahamas, where FTX was based. The 31-year-old founder was arrested there in December 2022.
Bankman-Fried entered the plea before the US district judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan federal court, the news agency indicated.
Alameda Account Access
On 28 March 2023, the US prosecutors accused Bankman-Fried of orchestrating a $40 million payment to Chinese authorities. This was supposedly done so that he could regain access to $1 billion in cryptocurrency funds held in Alameda accounts that had been frozen.
Before this, he had also pleaded not guilty to eight counts of fraud and conspiracy for allegedly stealing billions in FTX customer funds to cover losses at sister firm Alameda Research.
