FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried charged with 12 counts in new indictment

theguardian.com:

Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, facilitated hundreds of illegal political donations totaling tens of millions of dollars, court documents unsealed on Thursday have alleged.

The accusations were contained in a superseding indictment that contained four new charges.

“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,” read the new indictment, which was filed on Wednesday.

Bankman-Fried was previously charged with eight counts of fraud, money laundering and other charges over the collapse of the now-bankrupt exchange. He has pleaded not guilty. He remains free on a $250m bond and under house arrest at his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California.

The new charges include conspiracy to commit bank fraud and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transfer business, according to ABC News.

Bankman-Fried was one of the most prolific donors to liberal candidates, but he and co-conspirators are alleged to have given more than 300 donations to candidates using the names of a straw donor.

Some of those gifts allowed Bankman-Fried to get around political donation limits, while others were illegal because they used corporate money, prosecutors said.

Because Bankman-Fried did not want to be affiliated with either Democratic or Republican candidates, prosecutors say, he coordinated the giving with two other FTX executives so he did not appear to be leaning one way or the other.

In 2022, Bankman-Fried wanted to make a donation of at least $1m to the super Pac of a US Senate candidate who was pro-LGBTQ+, according to the filing. A political consultant working