Dem Megadonor SBF Charged With Donor Fraud in New Indictment

NEW YORK (Reuters)—Democrat megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried and his co-conspirators made more than 300 illegal political donations in the United States, according to a new indictment against the FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder unsealed on Thursday in a Manhattan federal court.

Because they were attributed as a charitable organization, the donations totaling tens to millions of dollars were illegal. “straw donor” Bankman-Fried often used corporate funds to bypass contribution limits on individual contributions to candidates.

Federal Election Commission records show that more than 95 percent of these donations went to Democrats and Democratic Committees. Bankman-Fried donated $5 Million to a superPAC in 2020 that supported President Joe Biden. Washington Free Beacon reported. In 2022, he donated $40 million, mostly to Democrats. He donated $6 million to House Majority PAC, $1million to Senate Majority PAC, nearly $900,000.000 to Democratic National Committee.

The new indictment includes eight conspiracy and four fraud charges.

Bankman-Fried was previously charged with eight counts each of fraud and money laundering in relation to the collapse of the now bankrupt exchange. In those cases, he pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors allege Bankman-Fried stole customer funds from Alameda Research to pay off losses at his hedge fund. Caroline Ellison (alameda’s former chief executives) and Gary Wang (a former FTX executive), pleaded guilty to fraud and agreed to cooperate.

“Exploiting the trust that FTX customers placed in him and his exchange, Bankman-Fried stole FTX customer deposits, and used billions of dollars in stolen funds for a variety of purposes,” The new indictment was filed Wednesday.

Bankman-Fried founded FTX in 2019 and enjoyed a boom in Bitcoin’s value and other digital assets, resulting in an estimated $26 Billion in net worth. He was also an important political donor to the United States, until November’s collapse of FTX due to a flood of withdrawals from customers.

Bankman-Fried was also indicted on conspiracy to commit bankfraud and conspiracy to run an unlicensed money transmission business.

Bankman-Fried has not yet responded to our request for comment.