Prosecutors are pushing back against Sam Bankman-Fried‘s request to dismiss criminal charges after he was indicted on fraud charges.
Bankman-Fried, 31, pleaded not guilty on Jan. 3 to 13 charges of fraud, conspiracy, making illegal campaign contributions, and foreign bribery in connection to the dramatic collapse of his cryptocurrency company FTX.
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In early May, Bankman-Fried asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan to dismiss 10 of the charges, with his lawyers arguing that several cryptocurrency companies went bankrupt last year and prosecutors rushed to judgment.
However, prosecutors argued in a filing on Monday that the motion to dismiss the charges was “meritless” and legally defective.
“The defendant’s alleged misconduct falls within the heartland of what these statutes prohibit,” prosecutors wrote in the filing.
Kaplan is scheduled to hear oral arguments on June 15.
Bankman-Fried had argued some of the fraud charges were based on a theory that the Supreme Court invalidated on May 11, known as the “right to control.”
The theory centers on depriving a victim of economically valuable information rather than tangible property. However, prosecutors said on Monday that the charges were not based on the “right to control” theory because Bankman-Fried’s “scheme” had sought to defraud his victims of tangible property: money.
After extradition from the Bahamas in December, the FTX founder was additionally charged on allegations that he bribed officials in China to unfreeze assets from his other company, Alameda Research, where he had allegedly diverted funds from defrauding clients.
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Bankman-Fried argued that the Bahamas did not approve the new charges, but prosecutors say that the country did ahead of extradition. However, if the Bahamas say that it did not approve them, then prosecutors would drop those specific bribery charges.
Bankman-Fried remains on house arrest in Palo Alto, California, on a $250 million bond. The trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 2. If convicted, the FTX co-founder faces up to 115 years in prison.
