FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to criminal charges that he cheated investors in his now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange and caused billions of dollars in losses, Reuters reports.
Bankman-Fried entered his plea in Manhattan federal court where he faces eight criminal counts, including wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. The 30-year-old ex-mogul is accused of looting FTX customers' deposits to support his Alameda Research hedge fund, buy real estate and donate millions of dollars to political causes.
Bahamian authorities arrested Bankman-Fried in mid-December at the request of the US government. He was subsequently extradited to the US.
Danielle Sassoon, a federal prosecutor, said at Tuesday’s hearing that the government has a deep well of evidence against Bankman-Fried, saying prosecutors will turn over hundreds of thousands of documents in coming weeks to the defense.
US District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Tuesday set an Oct. 2 date for trial, which Sassoon said could last four weeks.
The government has already secured guilty pleas from two former top associates of Bankman-Fried's - former Alameda chief executive Caroline Ellison and former FTX chief technology officer Gary Wang - who are cooperating with prosecutors and may testify at trial.
Five of the eight counts against Bankman-Fried carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison each.
FTX collapsed in early November after a wave of withdrawals and declared bankruptcy on November 11, wiping out Bankman-Fried's fortune. He later said he had $100,000 in his bank account.
Since his release on a $250 million bond on December 22, Bankman-Fried has been subject to electronic monitoring and required to live with his parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, both professors at Stanford Law School in California. Fried attended her son's hearing on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
On Tuesday, Kaplan imposed a new bail condition, saying Bankman-Fried cannot access FTX or Alameda assets.