Bankman-Fried, indicted founder of FTX, requests that the case be dismissed

Sam Bankman-Fried, who has consistently denied stealing from his FTX cryptocurrency exchange customers, claimed on Monday that prosecutors had acted with "troubling" haste in their case against him. He then asked a U.S. judge to dismiss 10 of the 13 criminal counts they had filed against him.

Bankman-Fried's attorneys claimed in a document submitted to a federal court in Manhattan that the now-bankrupt FTX was far from the only cryptocurrency business to fail during a market crash in 2022 and that prosecutors swiftly charged their client in a "rush to judgment."

His attorneys argued that the government jumped in headfirst, improperly attempting to turn these civil and regulatory issues into federal crimes, rather than waiting for conventional civil and regulatory processes to take their ordinary course to address the situation.

Before FTX declared bankruptcy in November, Bankman-Fried, a 31-year-old former billionaire, amassed an estimated net worth of $26 billion by leveraging the boom in bitcoin and other digital assets. She also rose to prominence as a political and philanthropic donor.

He has entered a not guilty plea to conspiracy and fraud.

After a wave of customer withdrawals following allegations that it had mixed assets with Bankman-crypto-focused Fried's hedge fund, Alameda Research, the exchange imploded.

According to federal prosecutors in Manhattan, Bankman-Fried defrauded FTX investors and lenders and stole billions of dollars in customer funds to cover Alameda's loss, purchase real estate, and contribute to politics using a fraudulent straw donor scheme. Additionally, they accuse him of paying off Chinese officials.