Sam Bankman Fried is not Guilty pleas to several federal fraud charges were largely expected, and some legal experts suggested a tactical response.
The former CEO of crypto exchange FTX, whose company went bankrupt in November, filed a petition in New York federal district court.
In the federal criminal justice system, it is very common for defendants to plead not guilty when they appear, Mary Beth Buchanan, a former U.S. attorney who now advises blockchain companies, told TechCrunch.
The demise of FTX and the swift timeline of legal action against those involved was unexpected and unprecedented.
“Personally, judging only from what is publicly known, I think it is highly unlikely that a plea bargain will be reached at the beginning of the case.” Michael Fasanello of AnChain.AI
Bankman-Fried faces eight federal criminal charges in less than two months and has several people close to him, including FTX co-founder and former CTO Gary Wang and Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison. pleaded guilty to the charges and accepted a plea bargain.
However, Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty. “Because he had an absolute right to do so,” Anthony Sabino, a law professor at The Peter J. Tobin College of Business at St. John’s University, told TechCrunch. “And it was a smart play.
Michael Fasanello, Crypto Compliance Officer at AnChain.AI, agrees. “The initial plea of ’not guilty’ is really just a form of procedural and acknowledgment of prosecution by the defendant.”
Pleading not guilty gives Bankman-Fried and his lawyers more room to try to make a deal with prosecutors, Sabino said.
Senior Judge Louis Kaplan of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York has set October 2 as Bankman-Fried’s next trial date. Until then his plea.
“This is not a case of wanting to plead ‘not guilty’ and wage all-out war, or plead ‘guilty’ and submit to the mercy of the courts,” Fasanello said. “The middle here is the sweet spot.”
Bankman-Fried’s defense team will take more time to prepare, given the expected mountain of evidence to sift through, Sabino said. It is likely that SBF will make a deal, so negotiating a plea bargain will take time.”
