FTX founder Bankman-Fried ‘dozed off and had to be woken up by official’ in court

Disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried appeared to fall asleep in a Bahamas court during a hearing Monday in which he agreed to be extradited to the United States against the advice of his lawyer.

Bankman-Fried, accused of defrauding FTX clients out of $8 billion, was allegedly seen ‘reclining with his eyes closed’ only to be woken up by court officials.

The pressure of the case appeared to have gotten to the 30-year-old man who wore a dark blue jacket and unbuttoned shirt for the court hearing.

Bankman-Fried has decided to agree to be extradited to the United States to face fraud charges, a person familiar with the matter said Monday, just hours after the lawyer for the FTX founder told a Bahamian judge he was not ready to give up. Your consent.

The change paves the way for the 30-year-old cryptocurrency mogul to face charges in New York on allegations that he stole billions of FTX clients to offset losses at Alameda Research, his hedge fund, before the exchange will collapse abruptly in November.

The pressure of the case appeared to have gotten to the 30-year-old man who wore a dark blue jacket and unbuttoned shirt for the court hearing.

It was not immediately clear when Bankman-Fried would leave the Bahamas, where he was arrested on December 12 on a US extradition request. No further court date was set at the end of Monday’s hearing.

His US defense attorney, Mark Cohen, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The US Attorney’s Office in Manhattan did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Bankman-Fried’s abrupt decision came after a tumultuous appearance on Monday morning before Judge Shaka Serville in a court in the capital Nassau, following reports from Reuters and other media over the weekend that she had decided reverse their decision to challenge the extradition.

At the hearing, Serville was initially told by his local criminal defense attorney, Jerone Roberts, that he did not know why Bankman-Fried was brought into court Monday morning.

After a recess, the lawyer said Bankman-Fried had seen an affidavit laying out the charges against him, but wanted to see the indictment filed against him last week in federal court in New York before he consented to extradition.

Serville told the hearing that he could not take any action on Bankman-Fried’s extradition without the former billionaire’s consent.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was advised against agreeing to be extradited to the US Jerone Roberts (left), a local defense attorney, was seen being chased by a journalist outside court

A fence topped with barbed wire surrounds the Magistrate Court building, where the FTX founder appeared for an extradition hearing.

Journalists followed Roberts (left), a local defense attorney for FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, as he left the Magistrate Court in Nassau, Bahamas.

“I can only be moved by Mr. Bankman-Fried, and he hasn’t moved me,” Serville said.

Bankman-Fried was given the chance to speak to his American lawyer by phone and was later sent back to the Caribbean nation’s Fox Hill prison. He left the courthouse in a black van marked ‘Corrections’, carrying a manila folder containing papers, a Reuters witness said.

Franklyn Williams, deputy director of legal affairs for the Bahamas, which is representing the United States in its effort to extradite Bankman-Fried, called the day’s proceedings “unbelievable” and appeared frustrated by the delay.

The 30-year-old cryptocurrency mogul boomed in the value of bitcoin and other digital assets to become a multi-time billionaire and an influential political donor in the United States, until FTX collapsed in early November after a wave of withdrawals. The exchange filed for bankruptcy on November 11.

Bankman-Fried has acknowledged failings in risk management at FTX, but said he does not believe he bears criminal liability.

Bankman-Fried was spotted by DailyMail.com on the balcony of a $30 million penthouse in the Bahamas. He later said that he did not live there, but stayed somewhere in the Bahamas.

During Monday’s hearing, he only spoke to greet Serville and confirm that he would speak with his US attorney.

On December 13, one day after his arrest, Bankman-Fried was taken to a correctional facility in the Bahamas. A 2021 US State Department report on the facility said detainees faced rodents and a lack of bathrooms, though local authorities said conditions have since improved. At his December 13 hearing, he called the night of his arrest “hectic.”

After Monday’s hearing, his Bahamian criminal defense attorney, Roberts, told the New York Times that his client had agreed to voluntary extradition and that he expected Bankman-Fried to return to court this week.

“We, as lawyers, will prepare the necessary documents to start the court,” Roberts was quoted as saying by the newspaper. ‘Mr. Bankman-Fried wants to help clients, and that’s what motivated his decision.’

Roberts could not immediately be reached for comment.

Krystal Rolle, an attorney who represented Bankman-Fried in non-criminal matters in the Bahamas, also confirmed comments Roberts had previously made to local broadcaster Eyewitness News Bahamas that Bankman-Fried would voluntarily waive her right to a hearing. of extradition.

The cryptocurrency CEO whose troubled FTX sent the market into a panic: a hooded vegan who was once worth ‘$25 BILLION’ and sleeps four hours a night

Sam Bankman-fried

Sam Bankman-Fried, a vegan who sleeps four hours a night, had become the public face of crypto money, with a personal fortune estimated at nearly $25 billion, which Forbes magazine has since shrunk to $100,000. .

FTX’s success allowed the platform to forge prestigious partnerships, notably with football legend Tom Brady and former supermodel Gisele Bundchen, and featured comedian Larry David in a Super Bowl TV ad.

Bankman-Fried, who appears almost always in a hoodie and a dark T-shirt, has pledged to donate almost all of his fortune to his favorite causes, such as animal welfare and the fight against global warming.

The son of Stanford Law School professors and a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he worked as a broker on Wall Street before turning to cryptocurrency in 2017.

Bankman-Fried moved the company to the Bahamas, where taxes are almost non-existent, saying that the Caribbean nation is “one of the few countries that have a comprehensive licensing regime for cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency exchanges.”

He has been a strong advocate of smoother access to the crypto market for the general public, particularly in the United States.