Bankman-Fried's criminal case assigned to judge in Trump, Prince Andrew cases

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)