Sam Bankman-Fried sent back to prison after chaotic hearing

A court hearing in the Bahamas in which Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was expected to agree to extradition to the United States ended in turmoil Monday with Bankman-Fried being sent back to the prison where he has been held for the past week.

A judge ordered the crypto entrepreneur returned to the Fox Hill jail in Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, after one of the prosecutors chided Bankman-Fried’s local defense lawyer for not being prepared to proceed.

Following his arrest in the Bahamas last week, Bankman-Fried initially indicated that he would contest his extradition. But he changed his mind and was prepared to return to the United States to be arraigned on a criminal indictment, a person briefed on the matter had said over the weekend.

The hearing Monday in Magistrate Court in Nassau had been arranged for Bankman-Fried to tell authorities he would not contest the extradition after all. But his local lawyer, Jerone Roberts, said he was “shocked” to see his client in court Monday morning, and requested at least one 45-minute break to confer privately with Bankman-Fried.

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Roberts then said Bankman-Fried wanted to read the indictment filed by federal prosecutors before making a decision on extradition.

The confusion in the courtroom is the latest twist in the criminal case arising from the sudden implosion of FTX, once one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges. FTX, which was based in the Bahamas, filed for bankruptcy Nov. 11. Within a month, federal prosecutors had filed criminal charges against Bankman-Fried, who is also facing civil fraud charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

It was unclear whether Bankman-Fried would return to court again this week to address his extradition.

Bankman-Fried, 30, has been held in custody in the Bahamas since Dec. 12, when he was arrested at his luxury apartment complex. Last week, federal prosecutors announced a grand jury had indicted him on eight counts of wire fraud, securities fraud, money laundering and a campaign finance violation.