SBF pleads not guilty to paying $40M bribe to Chinese officials

Accused crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty Thursday to a number of new charges, including allegedly paying a $40 million bribe to buy influence from Chinese officials.

Bankman-Fried, 31, entered the plea through his lawyer, Mark Cohen, who signaled he was planning to argue the charges were improperly filed because they followed his client’s extradition from the Bahamas in December.

Cohen told Manhattan federal court Judge Lewis Kaplan he and his team were “not acknowledging” that Bankman-Fried could be tried on the additional counts, brought in two separate indictments since his arrest.

Bankman-Fried previously pleaded not guilty to eight counts of fraud and conspiracy for allegedly swindling investors and customers at his FTX cryptocurrency exchange.

The shaggy-haired alleged fraudster was accused by Manhattan federal prosecutors on Tuesday of paying a $40 million bribe to unnamed Chinese officials to unlock bank accounts that had been frozen by Beijing. 

The accounts, which Bankman-Friend and his cohort gained access to after the bribe was allegedly paid, were filled with $1 billion in cryptocurrency, according to the feds. 

The new charges came after Bankman-Fried was hit with additional financial crimes in a superseding indictment in February that detailed the scope of his alleged campaign finance violations. 

In that indictment, the feds alleged Bankman-Fried and his co-conspirators made hundreds of bi-partisan political donations in an attempt to “curry favor” with politicians who could pass legislation favorable to his agenda.

Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX and related hedge fund Alameda Research, will remain out of jail on a $250 million bond pending trial but will be subject to the same strict bail conditions, Kaplan ruled Thursday.

He faces the rest of his life in prison if convicted and given the maximum penalty.