Disgraced crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried will still face seven criminal charges, prosecutors said on Tuesday in a letter to the judge overseeing the case—and a campaign finance charge is not going away.
The Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit at the Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney’s Office hit Bankman-Fried with eight charges in December. One of the charges—conspiracy to defraud the United States and violate the campaign finance laws—was dropped in July by the Justice Department.
The DOJ said today, however, that in addition to moving forward with the seven other criminal charges from the original indictment, prosecutors will include the alleged illegal finance scheme in another charge.
“The government writes to notify the Court and the defendant that it plans to seek a superseding indictment next week that will contain the seven counts that the government intends to prove at trial in October, which were the first seven charges of the original indictment,” Tuesday’s letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan read.
It added that it will “make clear” that “Bankman-Fried remains charged with conducting an illegal campaign finance scheme as part of the fraud and money laundering schemes originally charged.”

Decrypt's 2022 Person of the Year: Sam Bankman-Fried
Comparisons to Bernie Madoff are not quite right. But there are some similarities between the man who’s become synonymous with financial crime and FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, says a former Securities Exchange Commission attorney. “Madoff was the chairman of Nasdaq, and he created the first electronic exchange in the United States. Probably, when Madoff started off, I'm sure his intentions were good,” Elliot Lutzker, chair and partner at Davidoff Hutcher & Citron, told Decrypt. The same could...
The original seven charges are: conspiracy to commit wire fraud on customers; wire fraud on customers; conspiracy to commit wire fraud on lenders; wire fraud on lenders; conspiracy to commit commodities fraud; conspiracy to commit securities fraud; and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Bankman-Fried—better known in the crypto world as SBF—faces decades in prison if found guilty.
gm: FTX Meltdown 101: What the Hell Happened and What Comes Next
In less than a week, one of the largest and most trusted crypto exchanges went up in flames, along with its crypto celebrity founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. Dan Roberts, Stacy Elliott, and Kate Irwin from the gm podcast walk you through exactly how it happened, what it means for you, their own takes on the most interesting subplots, and what we can learn from it all. Plus: We review some comments SBF and CZ made on this podcast that look remarkable in hindsight. Watch and make sure to subscribe to the gm podcast on Apple or Spotify.
FTX was once perhaps the most famous crypto brand. The popular digital assets exchange had a deal with the Miami Heat, and former CEO and co-founder Bankman-Fried wined and dined politicians.
But the company quickly and unexpectedly went bust last November. Bankman-Fried was then arrested in the Bahamas in December. Prosecutors now allege the exchange was criminally mismanaged.
Bankman-Fried’s trial is expected to start in October.