A lawsuit found that Sam Bankman-Fried’s father sits on the advisory board of the leftist dark money group Arabella Advisors.
Arabella Advisors is a for-profit consultancy group that manages leftist nonprofit groups that sponsor entities that do not have to disclose their donors. Political groups that do not disclose their donors are commonly referred to as “dark money groups.”
Democrat politicians such as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) often attack conservative dark money groups; however, Democrats have often outpaced Republicans in dark money. A New York Times analysis of the 2020 elections found that Democrats benefitted from $1.5 billion, while Republicans benefitted from $900 million in dark money.
The lawsuit referred to the New Venture Fund, a non-profit charity managed by Arabella Advisors. It suggested that the fund “offered a platform through which FTX.US and its donors could contribute to select charitable causes.”
The Washington Examiner noted that Sam Bankman-Fried’s father, Joseph Bankman, and his mother, Barbara Fried were:
… unlawfully siphoning off millions of dollars in firm funds to benefit their “pet causes” and themselves. Bankman, whom FTX says helped the company “navigate tax issues,” said at one point he “considered having funds made available by Sam through Arabella,” according to court documents.
“This meant that Bankman had unfettered access to the FTX Group’s financials and corporate structure — two things that would have alerted him that money was moving between and among the FTX Exchanges, FTX Insiders, and other legal entities,” the lawsuit stated, referring to Joseph Bankman.
FTX is reportedly aiming to obtain millions of dollars that Bankman and Fried “fraudulently transferred and misappropriated.”
In August, Bankman-Fried pled not guilty to fraud and money laundering charges. His lawyers decried his conditions in jail, including a lack of vegan meals, stating, “Because he’s following his principles, [Bankman-Fried] is only now subsisting on a diet of bread and water.”
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
