FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is expected to enter a not guilty plea Tuesday afternoon to charges that he committed fraud and illegally used billions of dollars of customer assets at his now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange, Reuters reported , citing a person familiar with the matter. Bankman-Fried is scheduled to appear at 2 PM ET before U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan. The U.S. Justice Department has charged him with wire fraud, securities fraud, money laundering, and campaign finance violations. The SEC also filed suit against the 30-year-old , alleging that he defrauded investors and FTX customers. On Friday, FTX debtors urged the Bahamas Securities Commission to explain its estimate of FTX digital assets that it seized on Nov. 12 that at the time were valued at more than $3.5B. FTX's management suggested that the digital assets under the BSC's control were worth $296M. However, the BSC said Monday that FTX had incomplete information, and alleged that the FTX debtors are making public statements without the proper due diligence. Last month, two of Bankman-Fried's associates, Gary Wang, FTX's former chief technology officer and co-founder, and Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Bankman-Fried's trading firm, pled guilty to fraud charges and agreed to cooperate with U.S. prosecutors.
