Last December, in a scene that captivated audiences around the world, the billionaire crypto founder Sam Bankman-Fried was led away from his luxury apartment in the Bahamas by authorities. The disheveled 30-year-old was brought to a Bahamian jail, where he was held for a week before agreeing to be extradited to the U.S.
As Department of Justice prosecutors continue to build their criminal case against Bankman-Fried, which now includes 13 counts related to the collapse of his crypto exchange FTX, his extradition from the Bahamas has emerged as a thorny issue.
After law enforcement brought Bankman-Fried back to the U.S. on eight criminal counts, including wire fraud and conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws, prosecutors filed two superseding indictments with a total of five additional counts, including bank fraud and alleged bribery to Chinese officials.
Bankman-Fried's lawyers have argued that the superseding indictments violate the conditions of his extradition, filing for judicial review with the Supreme Court of the Bahamas to review the legality of the five additional charges.
In a late-night court filing on Wednesday, U.S. prosecutors countered that there was no basis to dismiss the additional counts in the superseding indictments. They argued that the government has proceeded in accordance with the extradition treaty between the U.S. and The Bahamas, which includes a provision for seeking consent for new charges after extradition.
Regardless, because Bankman-Fried had filed a motion with the high Bahamian court to "make representations" to authorities on whether they should consent to the U.S. government's request—and had been granted leave to file an application for judicial review by the court—prosecutors agreed to wait for the motion to be litigated before proceeding with the additional charges.
In a victory for Bankman-Fried, prosecutors said they were prepared to proceed with the U.S. criminal trial on the original criminal counts, severing the additional five counts until the motion in the Bahamas is concluded. Bankman-Fried has not escaped the charges, however—prosecutors asked the judge to schedule a new trial for the first quarter of 2024. Bankman-Fried's trial for the first eight counts is scheduled for October.
The FTX founder still faces steep odds: Several of his top lieutenants have agreed to cooperate with the government, and prosecutors are poring over a mountain of evidence, including millions of pages of records that range from Slack messages to diaries.
Bankman-Fried's lawyers are trying different tactics to challenge the charges, including a strategy that points blame at Bankman-Fried's previous law firm, Fenwick & West, for advice it provided on FTX.
A hearing is scheduled for Thursday morning in which Bankman-Fried's lawyers are expected to challenge additional charges.
