Business
Sam Bankman-Fried Pleads Not Guilty to Additional Set of Charges
The disgraced cryptocurrency government Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not responsible on Thursday to an array of legal fees, together with new accusations that he dedicated financial institution fraud and bribed a international official.
Sporting a brand new haircut that trimmed his distinctive mop, Mr. Bankman-Fried, 31, was again in Federal District Court docket in Manhattan to be arraigned on an up to date indictment that included 5 further counts in opposition to him.
In all, the founding father of the FTX cryptocurrency change, who was initially charged in December, is dealing with 13 legal counts. Federal prosecutors have stated Mr. Bankman-Fried orchestrated an enormous fraud that led to the collapse of the change in November and the misappropriation of billions of {dollars} in buyer deposits.
In January, he pleaded not responsible to the eight legal fees within the authentic indictment.
However federal prosecutors in Manhattan have been shifting quick to increase the case in opposition to Mr. Bankman-Fried, who’s scheduled to go to trial in October. Final month, they introduced that they’d filed a financial institution fraud depend and three different fees in opposition to him. And simply this week, they filed the international bribery cost, accusing Mr. Bankman-Fried of orchestrating a $40 million fee to a minimum of one Chinese language official in 2021 to unfreeze $1 billion in funds belonging to Alameda Analysis, his buying and selling agency.
In court docket on Thursday, Mr. Bankman-Fried’s lawyer, Mark Cohen, stated his shopper was difficult the fees. “My shopper pleads not responsible,” Mr. Cohen stated.
What’s FTX? The now bankrupt firm was one of many world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges. It enabled prospects to commerce digital currencies for different digital currencies or conventional cash; it additionally had a local cryptocurrency referred to as FTT. The corporate, based mostly within the Bahamas, constructed its enterprise on dangerous buying and selling choices that aren’t authorized in the USA.
What to Know About the Collapse of FTX
He additionally indicated that Mr. Bankman-Fried’s authorized group would possibly contest the federal government’s proper to convey among the further fees. Mr. Bankman-Fried was extradited to the USA from the Bahamas, the place FTX was based mostly. In extradition circumstances, prosecutors are typically restricted in bringing further fees after a defendant is transferred to the USA for an preliminary indictment.
In the meantime, the federal government has produced six million pages of paperwork to Mr. Bankman-Fried’s protection group, one of many prosecutors, Nicolas Roos, instructed the decide on Thursday. Mr. Roos stated the Federal Bureau of Investigation was additionally seeking to extract info from seven laptops and telephones that belonged to Mr. Bankman-Fried and others concerned within the case.
After he was extradited to the USA in December, Mr. Bankman-Fried was launched on bail however confined to his dad and mom’ residence in Palo Alto, Calif., the place he grew up. Whereas underneath home arrest, he has hosted a procession of tourists and repeatedly examined the bounds of the bail association. The decide chided him for logging onto a digital non-public community to observe soccer and utilizing the encrypted messaging app Sign to contact a possible witness in his case.
On Tuesday, Decide Lewis A. Kaplan licensed a brand new set of bail circumstances for Mr. Bankman-Fried, considerably curbing his web entry. Below the brand new guidelines, which take impact subsequent week, he’s permitted to make use of solely two digital gadgets — a laptop computer configured with restricted web entry and a telephone with no web connection.
Guests are prohibited from taking digital gadgets into Mr. Bankman-Fried’s residence. And he might be required to pay for a safety guard, who should display screen all guests utilizing a steel detector.
The Aftermath of FTX’s Downfall
- Jane Avenue Capital: The collapse of FTX has drawn consideration to the little-known Wall Avenue agency the place Sam Bankman-Fried began his profession. He was drawn there due to his curiosity in “efficient altruism.”
- Gaming Markets?: Since FTX imploded, Bankman-Fried denied accusations that he manipulated markets for his corporations’ profit. Cryptocurrency buyers disagree.
- Bail Phrases: A federal decide overseeing Bankman-Fried’s case has signaled a willingness to jail the disgraced government for his persistent testing of his confinement’s boundaries.
However the bail circumstances are the least of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s issues. The 13 counts embrace fees of securities fraud, wire fraud and marketing campaign finance violations. He’s additionally accused of committing financial institution fraud by obscuring the hyperlinks between FTX and Alameda.
Within the up to date charging doc filed on Tuesday, federal prosecutors stated that in 2021, Mr. Bankman-Fried instructed Alameda workers to pay a $40 million bribe to a number of unnamed Chinese language officers to revive entry to buying and selling accounts maintained by Alameda that held about $1 billion in cryptocurrency. One among Alameda’s frozen accounts was on the crypto change Huobi, in keeping with two individuals aware of the matter; the change didn’t reply to a request for remark. Alameda relied on a minimum of one Chinese language speaker on employees to assist unfreeze the funds, one of many individuals stated.
The bribe was paid in cryptocurrency and succeeded in getting the buying and selling accounts unfrozen, prosecutors stated.
Prosecutors introduced the bribery cost underneath the Overseas Corrupt Practices Act, a federal legislation that prohibits massive companies from paying bribes to function in different nations.
Business
Ocean technology hub AltaSea blooms on San Pedro waterfront
A moon shot to make Southern California an international leader in the “blue economy” is taking shape in San Pedro as a $30-million renovation of three historic waterfront warehouses nears completion.
AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles, as the complex is known, is home to sea-centered businesses such as the headquarters of explorer Robert Ballard, who located the wrecks of the Titanic and the German battleship Bismarck. His research vessel the Nautilus docks there, as does Pacific Alliance, a vessel for farming mussels far out at sea.
On barges docked on AltaSea’s wharf, scientists from USC, UCLA and Caltech are developing methods of reducing ocean carbon dioxide and technology to scrub ships’ exhaust stacks. Other tenants in the former warehouses include startup firms that are building a new generation of remote undersea cameras and 3-D printers to build parts for offshore wind, wave and solar farms.
“AltaSea is education, research and business all working together,” said Jenny Krusoe, executive vice president and chief operating officer. The size and waterfront location, she added, make AltaSea “a unicorn piece of property that is basically made to be the mother ship for the blue economy.”
Mayor Karen Bass and others who played a part in AltaSea, including City Councilman Tim McOsker and Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka, are expected to officially open the facilities at a ceremony Wednesday.
AltaSea is bringing new purpose to a previously moribund wharf that once played a rich part in the evolution of Southern California.
In the early 20th century, Los Angeles merchants and city leaders set out to capture a share of the increased global shipping trade expected to pass through the Panama Canal, a link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans that opened in 1914. They created a municipal wharf on the waterfront of what has become the sprawling Port of Los Angeles, with a long stretch of warehouses where ships were loaded and unloaded into trains, carts and trucks by burly longshoremen.
The growth of containerized shipping after World War II gradually rendered City Dock No. 1 obsolete for moving goods, and the wharf was little used for decades. By 2011, advocates, including port officials, saw it for what it was: a choice 35-acre site for a research center and tech companies focused on sustainable uses of the world’s oceans.
A key part of the mission of the nonprofit enterprise is to create jobs with pioneering companies. Among them is the nonprofit AltaSeads Conservancy, the largest aquaculture seed bank in the United States. Like their terrestrial counterparts, aquaculture seed banks are meant to preserve genetic diversity in plant life for the future. AltaSeads is also advancing the use of kelp as an easily grown resource.
“It’s a super versatile crop,” said scientist Emily Aguirre of AltaSeads, that can provide food for humans and livestock while removing carbon from the atmosphere. “It can be also be used to fertilize terrestrial agriculture, and it’s fantastic because if you grow it out in the ocean, you’re not taking up any land.”
Kelp is also a source of algae that cuts methane emissions from cows, Aguirre said, and has many other food applications, including reducing freezer burn in ice cream.
Eco Wave Power, an Israel-based company, is set to install the first U.S. onshore wave energy pilot station in the coming months on the port’s Main Channel, next to AltaSea. The system of floaters attaches directly to preexisting structures — like breakwaters, wharfs and jetties — and produces energy from the constant motion of the waves. Another AltaSea business, CorPower Ocean, uses buoys and hydraulic pressure for energy production.
The figurative whale for AltaSea so far is Ballard, who set up shop at the aged docks several years ago and has captured public interest as a deep-sea explorer and scientific researcher. It’s his headquarters and home to his research and development.
AltaSea has an array of solar panels on the roof bigger than three football fields that generates 2.2 megawatts, enough to power 700 homes annually and more energy than the entire campus will need when it reaches full capacity.
To fund the wharf’s redevelopment, AltaSea received $29 million from the state, Port of Los Angeles and private donors. The funds paid for construction, installation of the solar panels and the future creation of a park.
AltaSea is one of multiple projects that are part of a two-decade process to clean up the air and water at the port and turn unused docks, wharves and warehouses into places where more people will want to work or visit, port officials said.
“Bringing people to our waterfront has been a hallmark of the Port of Los Angeles for decades,” Seroka said in 2020, and recent investments “will really bring us to the next level.”
Before the pandemic, about 3 million people came to L.A.’s waterfront annually for recreation, a tally port leaders hope to see double in the years ahead. To smooth the path of new development catering to visitors, the Port of Los Angeles is investing about $1 billion in infrastructure improvements over 10 years, Seroka said. Private developers building AltaSea and other projects will invest an estimated $500 million.
One of those projects, West Harbor, is a long-planned redevelopment of a 42-acre site that used to be home to Ports O’ Call, a kitschy imitation of a New England fishing village, built in the 1960s, that fell out of favor years ago and was razed in 2018.
Restaurants anchoring the dining, shopping and entertainment center will include Yamashiro, the second branch of a Japanese-themed Hollywood destination for locals and tourists. Another large restaurant will be Mexican-themed, with an over-water bar. There will also be a food hall and Bark Social, a membership off-leash dog park, bar and cafe. The complex is slated to open next year.
The waterfront developments represent improvements that San Pedro residents have been waiting decades to see, said Dustin Trani, whose family has been in the local restaurant business for nearly a century. Last year the chef opened Trani’s Dockside Station, a seafood restaurant situated between AltaSea and West Harbor, in part to capitalize on the expected influx of visitors.
“We’re on the cusp of a very big economic boom in this area that has not yet been seen,” Trani said.
Business
Netflix beefs up film ranks, hiring 'Bad Boys for Life' producer
“Bad Boys for Life” producer Doug Belgrad will join Netflix as its vice president of film as the streaming giant continues to beef up its movie ranks following a major shakeup.
A longtime Sony Pictures executive, Belgrad was involved in nearly all the movie studio’s live-action intellectual property, including the “Spider-Man” franchise, “Ghostbusters” and “Jumanji.” In 2016, after leaving Sony, he founded his own film and TV production and financing company called 2.0.
The Culver City-based firm has co-financed such movies as “Peter Rabbit,” “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway” and “Zombieland: Double Tap,” all of which had Belgrad attached as an executive producer.
“As an executive and producer, I’ve been fortunate to work with many of the world’s most talented filmmakers and performers,” Belgrad said in a statement. “There is no better place to continue that work than Netflix, whose global reach and resources are unmatched.”
The move comes just months after Netflix hired producer Dan Lin to run the company’s film division, which has seen tremendous growth in production and release of original movies. Lin replaced Scott Stuber, the former Universal Pictures executive who guided Netflix’s movie slate for years, resulting in tent poles including “Red Notice” and Oscar winners such as “Roma.”
In a statement, Lin praised Belgrad’s years of experience.
“We will be leaning on Doug’s great creative instincts, his eye for talent, and his deep relationships across the filmmaking and talent community,” he said.
After Belgrad moves to Netflix, his 2.0 production and financing company will be led by current chief financial officer Zack Conroy and Sophie Cassidy, executive vice president of production.
Business
Erewhon sues city to stop Sportsmen's Lodge development in Studio City
The owners of Erewhon have filed an environmental lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles, the latest attempt by the upscale supermarket chain to stop the planned demolition of Sportsmen’s Lodge hotel in Studio City to make way for a new apartment complex.
Erewhon operates a store next to the defunct hotel and previously joined with local residents, union officials and others in opposition to a 520-unit residential mixed use development planned to replace the inn that was known to generations of San Fernando Valley residents.
Plans for the new development took a leap forward last month when the City Council voted 13 to 1 to deny an appeal of the project filed by Erewon’s owners and others, clearing the way for Midwood Investment & Development to demolish the aged hotel at Ventura Boulevard and Coldwater Canyon Avenue.
Midwood is Erewhon’s landlord, having built in 2021 the Shops at Sportsmen’s Lodge, an outdoor mall where Erewhon is the anchor tenant among other stores, restaurants and an Equinox gym. The mall replaced a banquet facility that served as a local social center where couples got married and families shared big occasions such as bar mitzvahs.
The event center and a restaurant opened in 1946 and the hotel in 1962. The hotel permanently closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The landlord got city permission to knock down the 190-room hotel and build the Residences at Sportsmen’s Lodge, which would have 520 apartments, including 78 units of subsidized affordable housing. It would include ground-floor stores and restaurants intended to meld with the Shops at Sportsmen’s Lodge.
Prior to the recent City Council vote, Erewhon, the Studio City Residents Assn. and Unite Here Local 11, which represents hotel workers, sought to stop the project by appealing aspects of the city’s review and approval process.
Some opponents argued that the hotel should be preserved. It was one of the first to unionize in the San Fernando Valley and one of the first union hotels in Los Angeles. Others were concerned about the project’s 97-foot height, the construction noise and the environmental impact.
After the appeals were rejected, Erewhon’s parent company last week filed a lawsuit in Superior Court demanding that the project approvals be rescinded because the city allegedly failed to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act as well as other state and local laws. The environmental law in part is intended to increase the public’s awareness of the potential environmental effects of proposed developments and other projects.
The city violated the act by forgoing an exhaustive Environmental Impact Report, or EIR, in favor of a less rigorous assessment, the lawsuit said.
Proponents of the development say it would bring housing to this section of Studio City, which is being targeted for a flurry of new development. Across the river, private school Harvard-Westlake is planning to build an extensive athletic facility.
Representatives of Erewhon and Midwood didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
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