Sam Bankman-Fried Pleads Not Guilty to Paying $40 Million Bribe to Chinese Officials

Suspected cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried entered a plea of not guilty on Thursday to several new charges, including allegedly paying a $40 million bribe to gain favor with Chinese officials.

Bankman-Fried, who is 31 years old, has pleaded not guilty to eight counts of fraud and conspiracy charges. His plea was entered through his lawyer, Mark Cohen, who indicated that he planned to challenge the charges as being improperly filed because they came after Bankman-Fried’s extradition from the Bahamas in December.

Cohen informed Manhattan federal Judge Lewis Kaplan that he and his team were disputing the possibility of Bankman-Fried being tried on the additional counts, which have been levied against him in two separate indictments since his arrest.

After the hearing, a spokesperson for Bankman-Fried released a statement saying “As Mr. Cohen stated in court, we will be challenging the new charges when motions are filed.”

The latest charges against Bankman-Fried were brought by Manhattan federal prosecutors on Tuesday, and accuse him and his accomplices of paying a $40 million bribe to unnamed Chinese officials to gain access to frozen bank accounts. The accounts allegedly contained a total of $1 billion in cryptocurrency.

The latest charges against Bankman-Fried come after he was indicted in February on additional financial crimes, wherein the scope of his alleged campaign finance violations were detailed. In that indictment, he and his co-conspirators were accused of making hundreds of bipartisan political donations in an attempt to influence politicians favorable to his agenda.

Bankman-Fried, who is the founder of FTX and hedge fund Alameda Research, has been released on a $250 million bond for bail pending trial, and must adhere to the same strict bail conditions as before, according to Judge Kaplan’s ruling on Thursday. He is facing the possibility of a life sentence if convicted and given the maximum penalty.