Justice Department drops campaign finance charge against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried

The Justice Department is dropping a campaign finance charge against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried on an apparent legal technicality involving his extradition in December 2022 from the Bahamas to the United States.

In a filing Wednesday, prosecutors wrote that the Bahamas informed the U.S. government earlier in the day that the Caribbean nation "did not intend to extradite the defendant on the campaign contributions count." 

Prosecutors said they dropped the campaign contributions charge in order to maintain U.S. extradition treaty obligations to the Bahamas.

The move is a win for Bankman-Fried's legal team, which had argued that the extradition process was mishandled, The New York Times reported.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams had said before the extradition that Bankman-Fried, whose net worth was $26 billion at its peak, made "tens of millions of dollars" in illegal campaign donations.

In January, Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty in January to numerous fraud, conspiracy, money-laundering and campaign finance charges. His trial is set to begin in October.

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