The girlfriend of disgraced FTX founder Samuel Bankman-Fried reportedly cooperated with federal officials, it was revealed, shortly after he was arrested in the Bahamas in connection with the collapse of his crypto empire.
Former U.S. attorney Marc Litt, who was involved in prosecuting Bernie Madoff, joined “Fox & Friends Weekend” Sunday to discuss the report alleging Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison worked with officials in relation to the charges.
“It wouldn’t surprise me at all,” Litt told Will Cain regarding the report. “She was the CEO of a company that seems to be intimately involved in the alleged fraud, and she’s… in the cross-hairs of the government… and she’s got a choice to make.”
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“There’s a little bit of a race to the prosecution at this point because the government needs cooperators,” he continued. “It’s in her interest to spin her narrative and tell her story before everybody else that the government talks to, points the finger at her, so she has every incentive to cooperate and get the benefits of cooperation.”
Bankman-Fried was arrested Monday and indicted Tuesday in Manhattan federal court on fraud, money laundering and campaign finance charges in connection to an alleged scheme to misappropriate billions of dollars of customer funds deposited with the international cryptocurrency exchange FTX and mislead investors and lenders to FTX and to Alameda Research, the cryptocurrency hedge fund he also founded. Bankman-Fried’s ex, Ellison, had served as CEO of the latter.
Bankman-Fried, who was arrested in the Bahamas, is expected to appear in a Bahamas courtroom on Monday to reverse course and agree to extradition.
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Litt explained his role as a defendant in the extradition process and why he could fight the procedure yielding a delay in his looming return to the United States.
“The defendant has rights,” Litt said. “There’s a process that needs to be followed, and the defendant has a tough choice to make. He can either decide to fight extradition or he can waive that process and come voluntarily to the United States.”
“He might decide to fight extradition if he thinks delay is his friend or if he thinks there’s a chance that the country that he’s in won’t extradite him completely or won’t extradite him for certain of the charges that he faces,” he continued.
But Litt also mentioned it might be in his best interest, with this particular case, to decide against fighting extradition if he wants a chance to best defend himself.
“On the other hand, if it’s almost inevitable that he’s going to be extradited and if delay is not his friend, which I think is the case here, he may decide to voluntarily waive and come to the United States,” Litt said. “It’s very difficult to defend oneself against these kind of charges from prison, from jail. It’s doubly hard to do so if you’re in a foreign country.”
Bankman-Fried was the second-largest Democratic Party donor during the 2022 midterm elections, awarding candidates with nearly $40 million.
Officials have been in contact with both Democratic and Republican campaigns regarding those donations since the FTX implosion.
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FOX Business’ Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.