Bankman-Fried's criminal case assigned to judge in Trump, Prince Andrew cases
Sam Bankman-Fried's criminal case over the collapse of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange has been reassigned to a judge recently known for handling defamation lawsuits against former U.S. President...

Dec 27 (Reuters) - Sam Bankman-Fried's criminal case
over the collapse of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange has been
reassigned to a judge recently known for handling defamation
lawsuits against former U.S. President Donald Trump and a sexual
abuse lawsuit against Britain's Prince Andrew. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan replaces his colleague
Ronnie Abrams, who recused herself on Friday after learning that the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell,
where her husband is a partner, advised FTX in 2021. Known for his no-nonsense demeanor in the courtroom,
Kaplan, a judge since 1994, oversees two civil lawsuits by
former Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll accusing Trump of defaming her by denying he raped her in a Manhattan
department store dressing room 27 years ago. Trump has sought the dismissal of both lawsuits,
including a battery claim. Kaplan also recently oversaw Virginia Giuffre's civil
lawsuit accusing Prince Andrew of sexually abusing her when she
was 17 at the London home of Ghislaine Maxwell, the
now-convicted former associate of late sex offender Jeffrey
Epstein. Andrew settled that case in February. The U.S. Department of Justice accused Bankman-Fried of
causing billions of dollars of losses related to FTX, once the
second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, including by using
customer funds to support his Alameda Research crypto trading
platform. Bankman-Fried has acknowledged risk-management failures
at FTX, but said he does not believe he is criminally liable for
what prosecutors called a "fraud of epic proportions." After being extradited to New York from the Bahamas to face
the charges, the 30-year-old Bankman-Fried was released on
Thursday on a $250 million bond, and required to remain under
detention at his parents' California home. He has not entered a
plea.
(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware and Jonathan
Stempel in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and David
Gregorio)