US prosecutors said they’ll drop a charge against Samuel Bankman-Fried on unlawful campaign contributions after the embattled crypto CEO had argued it wasn’t part of the extradition documents the Bahamas had signed off on.
(Bloomberg) — US prosecutors said they’ll drop a charge against Samuel Bankman-Fried on unlawful campaign contributions after the embattled crypto CEO had argued it wasn’t part of the extradition documents the Bahamas had signed off on.
“In keeping with its treaty obligations to The Bahamas, the government does not intend to proceed to trial on the campaign contributions count,” US Attorney Damian Williams wrote in a letter to the court Wednesday.
The campaign finance contribution count was one of 13 Bankman-Fried faced heading into a trial in October where he’s set to fight US government claims that he ran a yearslong fraud at FTX.
Bankman-Fried had contested the validity of five charges, arguing they weren’t part of an extradition agreement that paved the way for his return to the US in December. The government severed those charges from the October trial, essentially splitting the case in two.
The 31-year-old had also challenged prosecutors on one other campaign finance charge, claiming it should be thrown out because the Bahamian government didn’t include it in official documents green lighting his extradition.
Generally, a person can only be indicted for the offenses upon which they are extradited to the US, though prosecutors had argued they were still permitted to file fresh charges if they secured the consent of The Bahamas.
The Bahamas has since told the government it didn’t intend to extradite Bankman-Fried on the campaign contribution charge, according to Williams’s letter.
The case is US v. Bankman-Fried, 22-cr-673, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
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