Disgraced Democratic mega-donor Sam Bankman-Fried agrees to flip on Tom Brady and other celebrity FTX promoters



Middle-aged NFL legend Tom Brady recently hinted at the possibility that he might stage a Michael Jordan-style comeback. He just might have to in order to stay whole thanks to disgraced Democratic mega-donor Sam Bankman-Fried's latest act of betrayal.

Bankman-Fried, the convicted fraudster whose mom figures is too autistic for prison, has apparently agreed to cooperate with the group of cryptocurrency users suing various FTX influencers, including Brady and his ex-wife.

Background

Blaze News previously reported that Tom Brady and his former spouse, Gisele Bündchen, were named in a class-action lawsuit filed in Miami's Southern District of Florida federal court in November 2022, along with former NBA star Shaquille O'Neal, Golden State Warriors basketballer Stephen Curry, Los Angeles Angels baseballer Shohei Ohtani, "Shark Tank's" Kevin O'Leary, and "Seinfeld" cocreator Larry David.

The class-action complaint launched months after the collapse of the crypto exchange company FTX alleges that Brady and the other brand ambassadors were responsible for "misrepresentations and omissions" in the advertisements in which they told acquaintances to unwittingly throw their money away into "the FTX Ponzi scheme."

Brady and Bündchen each took an equity stake in FTX as part of a 2021 ambassadorial partnership. While Brady became a brand ambassador, Bündchen took on the role of FTX's environmental and social initiatives advisor. The former couple appeared in a series of FTX commercials.

Curry similarly got into bed with the ill-fated company, signing on to a "long-term partnership" with FTX in September 2021 in exchange for a now-worthless equity stake. In one advertisement, Curry said, "With FTX, I have everything I need to buy, sell, and trade crypto safely."

Larry David was featured in a Super Bowl commercial for FTX where he played a number of characters rejecting historically consequential ideas, such as the light bulb. The advertisement ultimately showed David reject FTX, then suggested, "Don't be like Larry."

This FTX Super Bowl ad with Larry David ran FTX $1.13B\n\nthe irony of it\u2026 an arrest scene, Larry David saying he doesn\u2019t believe in Crypto, a ton of foreshadowing as @SBF_FTX is on trial\u2026 \n\nThe \u201cdon\u2019t be be like Larry David\u201d line after FTX lost billions of customer funds lol
— (@)

While O'Neal managed to avoid being served in the lawsuit for several months, last April he became the last of the celebrities to be served a legal notice.

No honor among FTX alumni

An April 19 court filing indicates the plaintiffs in the case have reached a settlement with Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison last month for his orchestration of multiple fraudulent schemes and ordered to pay $11 billion in forfeiture, reported Cointelegraph.

The fraudster will cooperate with the investors, and, in exchange, they will drop their civil liabilities against him.

The filing states, "[Bankman-Fried] has knowledge and other information that Class Representatives and Class Counsel believe will be valuable to Class Representatives' cases against other defendants in the FTX MDL [multidistrict litigation], particularly relating to the underlying actions and their connection to Miami, Florida, where FTX's U.S. headquarters were based, as well as each MDL Defendants' knowledge of and assistance with the actions and connections to other states in which jurisdictions over those Defendants is asserted."

Should the court approve the deal, Bankman-Fried would fork over non-privileged documents concerning his assets and his investment in the AI start-up Anthropic, proof of a negative net worth, and documents about the FTX brand ambassadors, reported the Daily Mail.

The Democratic mega-donor also apparently agreed to surrender any information he has about venture capital firms that invested in FTX as well as any accountants or lawyers who worked with the defunct crypto exchange.

CoinDesk reported that the fraudster's former friends and codefendants Caroline Ellison, Nishad Singh, and Gary Wang, have — along with FTX lawyer Dan Friedberg — made similar settlement agreements with the class-action plaintiff's attorneys.

A number of middling talents who promoted FTX, including Jaspreet Singh, Tom Nash, Jeremy Lefebvre, and Graham Stephan, have apparently also settled, as has Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence.

While flipping on his former celebrity boosters, Bankman-Fried appears to be trying to dodge accountability for his crimes. Earlier this month, the former multibillionaire appealed his fraud convictions and prison sentence.

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Sam Bankman-Fried's mom suggests he's too autistic for prison in bid to spare him from accountability



A U.S. District Court in Manhattan will hand down a sentence on March 28 for convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried. While the Democratic mega-donor faces up to 110 years behind bars, Stanford Law professor Barbara Fried told the court in a filing Tuesday that her fraudster son is too delicate for prison.

Barbara Fried — sued in September along with her husband, Joseph Bankman, for allegedly enriching herself with money that her son stole from customers — painted Sam Bankman-Fried as a misunderstood autist in a bid to have him serve no more than 6.5 years.

A federal jury determined in October that Sam Bankman-Fried stole $8 billion from FTX customers to blow largely on Democratic candidates, leftist causes, real estate purchases, investments in other companies, and other pet causes. He also reportedly gave his parents tens of millions of dollars and gifted them a $16.4 million property in the Bahamas.

Bankman-Fried was ultimately convicted of two counts of wire fraud conspiracy; two counts of wire fraud; one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering; conspiracy to commit commodities fraud; and conspiracy to commit securities fraud.

In the filing, Barbara Fried, a liberal who ran a donor network for Democratic candidates, suggested her 32-year-old son is a victim of public ridicule now that his "eccentricities" are no longer charming now that he's a poor criminal, reported the New York Post.

"The broader public was charmed by many of his eccentricities — or at least pretended to be — while he was on top of the world. The moment he fell, the same public became merciless, ridiculing his awkward traits and verbal style, taking them as a sign of duplicity or worse, and portraying him as a freak with evil intentions," wrote Fried.

"The media's weapon of choice is words," continued the fraudster's wealthy mother. "The same cannot be said for prisons."

Fried insinuated that her Adderall-dependent son has some form of autism, which might make life difficult for him in the slammer.

"[Bankman-Fried] has a number of mannerisms that are associated with high-functioning people with ASD," wrote Fried, referencing Autism Spectrum Disorder. "He's bad at responding to social cues in 'normal' ways, uncomfortable looking people in the eye, uncomfortable with outward shows of emotion."

"It may be that some of the inmates will come to appreciate Sam once they get to know him. But miscommunication in that environment is dangerous, and Sam's traits greatly increase the likelihood of its occurring," she added.

Marc Mukasey, the lawyer overseeing the fraudster's sentencing, cited Fried's letter and others as indications of the former billionaire's "neurodiversity."

"He can be perceived as abrupt, dismissive, evasive, detached, or uncaring," said the filing.

Despite Sam Bankman-Fried's track record of ruining various lives and livelihoods, the fraudster's father, Stanford Law School professor Joseph Bankman wrote, "Nothing he has done can justify putting him at risk."

Miriam Baer, vice dean at Brooklyn Law School, told the Times that even if Judge Lewis A. Kaplan does not throw the Democratic mega-donor away for a century, he "could still give a very serious sentence given how young Mr. Bankman-Fried is — say, a 30- or 35-year sentence."

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Biden's DOJ drops campaign finance charge against Democratic megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried



The Department of Justice has dropped its campaign finance violation charge against disgraced FTX founder and Biden donor Sam Bankman-Fried.

What's the background?

Following the November 2022 collapse of his former cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Democratic megadonor Bankman-Fried was hit with eight charges of fraud and conspiracy, including a campaign finance charge.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams of the Southern District of New York wrote in a December 2022 letter to District Judge Ronnie Abrams, "The Government expects the evidence will show that the defendant violated campaign finance laws by causing political contributions to candidates and committees ... to be made in the names of co-conspirators, when in fact those contributions ere funded by Alameda Research with misappropriated customer funds."

Williams indicated this alleged scheme enabled the Democratic megadonor to evade "contribution dollar limits, corporate donation limits, and donation reporting requirements."

TheBlaze previously detailed how an indictment, unsealed in February in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, suggested that Bankman-Fried and "co-conspirators made over 300 political contributions, totaling tens of millions of dollars, that were unlawful because they were made in the name of a straw donor or paid for with corporate funds" (i.e., unsuspecting clients' money).

The indictment further accused the Democratic megadonor of seeking to acquire influence by way of these allegedly "unlawful political contributions" as well as to "improve his personal standing in Washington, D.C., increase FTX's profile, and curry favor with candidates that could help pass legislation favorable to FTX or BANKMAN-FRIED's personal agenda."

These efforts appears to have been extra to his ostensibly above-board donations.

Bankman-Fried reportedly donated $10 million to then-candidate Joe Biden in 2020.

The crypto hustler reportedly also hired a network of "political operatives" and spent at least $39,826,856 in an effort to help Democrats win their House races in the November 2022 midterm elections.

Among his beneficiaries were Democratic Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Cory Booker (D-N.J), and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y) and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Bankman-Fried told Jacob Goldstein of "What's Your Problem?" that he planned to possibly donate "north of $100 million" and up to $1 billion to Democrats in the 2024 presidential elections.

Bankman was extradited from the Bahamas back to the United States on December 21, 2022.

Biden DOJ drops charges

Forbes reported that the Biden DOJ will not pursue a campaign finance charge against Bankman-Fried as a means of placating the Bahamas, which has claimed this charge was not part of its initial extradition agreement with America.

In a Wednesday letter to U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, U.S. Attorney Williams indicated that Bankman-Fried had moved to dismiss the conspiracy to make unlawful campaign contributions count on "rule of specialty grounds," but that this had been rejected.

While this motion had been rejected, Williams noted the DOJ subsequently "informed the Court that the United States had sought clarification from The Bahamas regarding whether this count was included in the defendant's extradition."

The Bahamas purportedly came back suggesting it had not intended to extradite the disgraced Democratic megadonor "on the campaign contributions count."

Williams wrote, "In keeping with its treaty obligations to The Bahamas, the Government does not intend to proceed to trial on the campaign contributions count."

Prosecutors removed five other charges against Bankman-Fried last month, punting them to 2024 after a Bahamas court ruling suggested the DOJ may have fouled up the procedure for charging the former billionaire, reported CNBC.

According to the New York Times, Bankman-Fried is now left only facing seven charges at his trial in October, although he will likely face the five punted charges at a subsequent trial.

John P. Fishwick Jr., a former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, told the Times prosecutors still had "overwhelming evidence against Sam Bankman-Fried" and that he still could face dozens of years behind bars.

Reuters reported that Judge Kaplan tightened Bankman-Fried's bail conditions Wednesday, hitting him with a gag order after he had shared his former lover Caroline Ellison's personal writings with the press, which prosecutors said amounted to more witness tampering.

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Democrat megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried charged with conspiracy to make unlawful political donations



Disgraced FTX founder and Democrat megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried has been charged with several new criminal counts, including illegally making over 300 political contributions, totaling tens of millions of dollars.

Bankman-Fried, who made a reputation for coming second only to George Soros when padding Democrats' pockets in 2022, now faces 12 criminal charges, including four for fraud and eight for conspiracy, reported Reuters.

Illegally floating Democrat boats

According to an indictment unsealed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Bankman-Fried and "co-conspirators made over 300 political contributions, totaling tens of millions of dollars, that were unlawful because they were made in the name of a straw donor or paid for with corporate funds" (i.e., unsuspecting clients' money).

"In dozens of instances, BANKMAN-FRIED's use of straw donors allowed him to evade contribution limits on individual donations to candidates to whom he had already donated," said the indictment.

"As a result of this fraudulent conduct, BANKMAN-FRIED and his co-conspirators caused false information to be reported by campaigns and PACs to the FEC, which had the result of impairing and impeding the FEC' s reporting and enforcement functions."

The document accuses Bankman-Fried of making "unlawful political contributions" to acquire influence and to "improve his personal standing in Washington, D.C., increase FTX's profile, and curry favor with candidates that could help pass legislation favorable to FTX or BANKMAN-FRIED's personal agenda, including legislation concerning regulatory oversight over FTX and its industry."

TheBlaze previously reported that Bankman-Fried, touted in August by Fortune as a "trading wunderkind whose ambition knows no limits," donated $10 million to then-candidate Joe Biden in 2020.

The crypto hustler now accused of illegal political donations reportedly also hired a network of "political operatives" and spent at least $39,826,856 in an effort to help Democrats win their House races in the November 2022 midterm elections.

Prior to its collapse, his company FTX funneled $27 million through the leftist PAC Protect Our Future, accounting for nearly 95% of the funds raised by the PAC.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) benefited from the Senate Majority PAC and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) from the House Majority PAC, to both of which Bankman-Fried and his alleged co-conspirator Nishad Singh donated millions of dollars.

Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) were recipients of maximum donations.

Failed Democrat candidate Beto O'Rourke also secured $1 million from the FTX founder in 2022. The lengthy list of Democrat recipients goes on and has been posted by Open Secrets.

Bankman-Fried told Jacob Goldstein of "What's Your Problem?" that he planned to possibly donate "north of $100 million" and up to $1 billion to Democrats in the 2024 presidential elections.

The plot thickens

The indictment further claims that Bankman-Fried "recorded the outgoing wire transfers from Alameda to individuals' bank accounts for purposes of making contributions as Alameda 'loans' or 'expenses.'"

However, unlike other loans that were made to FTX executives, "these outgoing wire payments were not documented in agreements or on term sheets, and there were no set interest rates, no interest payments, no collateral, and no evidence of repayment."

According to the indictment, the transfers in question in the months leading up to the midterm elections were not recorded on internal Alameda tracking spreadsheets. Instead, "an internal Alameda spreadsheet noted over $100 million in political contributions, even though FEC records reflect no political contributions by Alameda for the 2022 midterm elections to candidates or PACS."

NBC News noted that prosecutors appear to have gained access to records of Bankman-Fried's encrypted chat messages on Signal concerning his and his co-conspirators' political spending.

When FTX began to collapse, Bankman-Fried and his co-conspirators allegedly began to worry bout the "'maybe 80m' of 'donations/personal/etc that went through my bank [account] and are in my name.'"

One of his co-conspirators allegedly proposed a "back-dated transaction to undo any sort of debt he might owe as a result of wire transfers being recorded on Alameda's ledgers as 'loans,'" thereby further concealing "the campaign finance scheme."

Straw men playing with fire

To avoid developing a reputation as a "left-leaning partisan," Bankman-Fried allegedly made sure to obscure his association with certain contributions by having others make them on his behalf.

One co-conspirator, not named in the indictment, reportedly was set to throw money after "a candidate running for a United States Congressional seat and appeared to be affiliated with pro-LGBTQ issues," as well as what Bankman-Fried termed "woke shit for transactional purposes."

Nishad Singh, a big Democrat donor in Bankman-Fried's inner circle who served as FTX's director of engineering, donated $8 million to federal campaigns in the 2022 election cycle, all of it to Democrats, reported CNBC. He donated over $13 million to Democrat causes since the 2020 presidential election, including Future Forward USA, a PAC that supported Biden's run for president.

Singh reportedly gave around $2 million in June and July to the Senate Majority PAC that helped Democrats hold on to their majority in the Senate. He also doled out $4 million in August and September to the pro-abortion campaign Reproductive Freedom for All.

Based on his donations, it would appear that Singh is co-conspirator one (CC-1) referenced in the indictment.

Bloomberg reported last week that Singh is expected to plead guilty to criminal charges for his role in an alleged multiyear fraud at FTX. This and whatever potential deal Singh may have hammered out with Manhattan prosecutors may further isolate Bankman-Fried.

Bankman-Fried was arrested in December in the Bahamas and dragged back to the United States to face charges in a federal court. He pleaded not guilty to the previous charges and is currently out on bail.

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Here are some of the biggest FTX losers — along with its biggest Democrat beneficiaries



Democrat megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried lost his entire fortune in the Election Day collapse of his crypto exchange company, FTX. Bankman-Fried may be the single biggest loser in this most recent titan fall, but, an ESG champion to the bitter end, he has spread the misfortune around.

High-profile losers

Tom Brady and his ex-wife, Gisele Bündchen, each took an equity stake in FTX as part of a 2021 ambassadorial partnership. While Brady became a brand ambassador, Bündchen took on the role of FTX's environmental & social initiatives advisor.

Both promoted FTX in a series of commercials and other initiatives, such as this one:

FTX Crypto: Tom Brady is In. Are you? youtu.be

According to the Tampa Bay Times, Brady and Bündchen were both named in a class-action lawsuit filed in Miami's Southern District of Florida federal court on Wednesday, along with former NBA star Shaquille O'Neal, Golden State Warriors basketballer Stephen Curry, Los Angeles Angels baseballer Shohei Ohtani, "Shark Tank's" Kevin O'Leary, and "Seinfeld" co-creator Larry David.

The class-action complaint alleges that Brady and his ex-wife, like other brand ambassadors, were responsible for "misrepresentations and omissions" in the advertisements in which they told acquaintances to unwittingly throw their money away into "the FTX Ponzi scheme."

The suit, which claims that Bankman-Fried and his celebrity accomplices are behind losses to American consumers in the neighborhood of $11 billion, is presently seeking more than $5 million in damages.

Stephen Curry, named in the suit, signed onto a "long-term partnership" with FTX in September 2021 in exchange for an equity stake in the company, now worthless. Like Brady, Curry promoted FTX in advertisements.

Barron's suggested that Curry — who said in one advertisement, "[W]ith FTX I have everything I need to buy, sell, and trade crypto safely" — could now "lose big."

Anthony Scaramucci's investment company, SkyBridge Capital, which manages around $2.2 billion, was shaken up by the collapse. FTX Ventures acquired 30% of the firm last September.

Scaramucci, who lasted 10 days in the Trump White House, told CNBC that he had been "duped."

"He was giving me the money ... I was doing a lot of due diligence on him, but clearly not enough;" said Scaramucci per a TheStreet report.

Last last week, SkyBridge Capital tried to buy back the stake from the exchange.

Sequoia Capital had two funds invested in FTX.com and FTX US — the first at $150 million, the second at $63.5 million — Fox Business reported.

In a Nov. 9 statement, Sequoia indicated that its "exposure to FTX is limited," claiming that the $150 million loss "is offset by ~$7.5B in realized and unrealized gains in the same fund, so the fund remains in good shape."

The $63.5 million allegedly represented less than 1% of the second fund.

SoftBank previously fundraised for FTX, bringing in $400 million. A "minor investment" of under $100 million had been given to the company, which SoftBank plans to write off as a loss.

There are other sizable investors which are set to lose face and cash, including:

  • the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, now facing a potential loss of $95 million;
  • Chase Coleman's Tiger Global Management, down 44% in the first months of the year, invested with the OTPP in a December 2019 funding round that reportedly valued the company at $8 billion;
  • Paradigm, which invested $278 million in FTX;
  • Genesis, the derivatives of which business Fortune reported had $175 million locked up in FTX;
  • Multicoin Capital, which has an estimated $863 million in crypto and other assets frozen at FTX; and
  • Galaxy Digital, which claimed last Wednesday to have had a $76.8 million exposure to FTX.
Fortune Crypto reported that Altimeter Capital Management, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Iconiq Capital, Third Point, Insight Partners, and Thoma Bravo, among others, may also be fated to lose their investments.

It's not just big firms that have been left in the lurch. While the bankruptcy filing drawn up by FTX indicated that the company has over 100,000 creditors, CNBC reported that there could be more than one million creditors.

Democratic beneficiaries

Many may now associate FTX with loss and misfortune. The same may not be true for a legion of Democrats.

Prior to the collapse of FTX and his professional demise, Bankman-Fried made a name for himself as a Democrat megadonor.

TheBlaze previously reported that Bankman-Fried donated $10 million to then-candidate Joe Biden in 2020 and spent at least $39,826,856 this year in an effort to help Democrats win their House races.

Fox Business reported that in 2001 and 2022, Bankman-Fried donated roughly $38 million to Democratic candidates and leftist PACs.

FTX funneled $27 million through the leftist PAC Protect Our Future, accounting for nearly 95% of the funds raised by the PAC.

Citing Federal Election Commission filings, Fox Business noted that Bankman-Fried wired $9 million to the PAC in February and then made three subsequent donations collectively worth $18 million between March and June.

Another $1 million was donated to the PAC by top FTX executive Nishad Singh.

The group supported the following Democrats:

Fox Business indicated that the PAC also shelled out between $200,000 and $972,00 to several other leftist politicos, including Rep. Jesus Garcia (Ill.) and Reps.-elect Morgan McGarvey (Ky.), Maxwell Frost (Fla.), and Sydney Kamlager (Calif.).

In May, Bankman-Fried told Jacob Goldstein of "What's Your Problem?" that he was considering donating "north of $100 million" and up to $1 billion to Democrats in the 2024 presidential elections.