Sam Bankman-Fried Hires Former Assistant U.S. Attorney as Attorney

Sam Bankman-Fried Hires Former Assistant U.S. Attorney as Attorney
The former FTX chief will be represented by Mark Cohen, who defended Ghislaine Maxwell, who received 20 years in prison for trafficking minors for sex, instead of the 30-55 years the prosecution insisted on

Founder and former FTX exchange executive Sam Bankman-Fried has hired Mark S. Cohen of Cohen & Gresser (C&G) as his attorney, Bankman-Fried spokesman Mark Botnick told Reuters.

Prosecutors and regulators have not yet charged Bankman-Fried or Allison, but the former FTX and Alameda Research executives are facing civil lawsuits from the exchange's customers, the publication reported.

Cohen, a former assistant federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of New York, famously recently defended Jeffrey Epstein's girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who received a 20-year prison sentence in a sex trafficking case involving minors. Prosecutors had asked for sentences ranging from 30 to 55 years in prison.

Cohen and his colleagues at C&G have also achieved two significant victories in controversial cases, according to the company's Web site. In one, the lawyers defended a former hedge fund analyst against insider trading charges brought by the SEC.

The crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy in November because of a liquidity crisis that led to the disappearance of at least $1 billion in customer funds.

Even before the bankruptcy filing, it was learned that Bankman-Fried had transferred at least $4 billion in FTX funds, which included customer funds, to Alameda Research to support it after losses from a series of transactions.