Nishad Singh, co-founder and former chief engineer of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, is working on a plea deal with prosecutors, Bloomberg informed February 17. The deal, which will see Singh, 27, plead guilty to charges related to the FTX collapse, has yet to be finalized, the report said.
Singh will follow in the footsteps of former FTX CTO Gary Wang and former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, who pleaded guilty in December to federal fraud charges after making deals with prosecutors. Former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to eight federal charges and currently lives with his parents in California.
Singh, a childhood friend of SBF’s brother Gabriel, was the writer of some of the FTX programs and one of the roommates in the SBF penthouse in the Bahamas. SBF said a Vox reporter shortly after the FTX collapse said that Singh was “terrified”, “ashamed and guilty” of the event.
scoop with lovely@avabmorrison. Nishad Singh, another former member of Sam Bankman-Fried’s inner circle, plans to plead guilty to fraud. pic.twitter.com/ESrYhORQrw
— Ally Versprill (@allyversprille) February 17, 2023
Singh remained out of the limelight for the longest time among FTX executives, but reappeared in the first week of January at a meeting at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. At the meeting, upon proposal, a person may be granted limited immunity in order to share his knowledge with prosecutors.
FTX aims to return political donations by the end of February
Federal criminal charges are only part of Singh’s legal worries. Singh and other members of FTX’s inner circle were subpoenaed Feb. 14 in a class action lawsuit against venture capital firm Sequoia Capital and private equity firms Thoma Bravo and Paradigm.
Ellison and Wang settled cases brought against them by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, but Singh could potentially be sued by those agencies. Among the allegations against the SBF are campaign finance violations. Singh has also been a major donor to U.S. Democratic candidates and organizations, reportedly donating $9.3 million since 2020.
Credit : cointelegraph.com
