According to Bloomberg, Nishad Singh, the former director of engineering for the defunct crypto exchange FTX, plans to plead guilty to fraud charges for his role in the alleged scheme.
According to Bloomberg, Singh’s plea agreement with the federal prosecutors’ office in New York has not yet been finalised, and it is unclear what the outcome of the plea deal will be for Singh.
If Singh accepts a plea deal, he will join other members of Sam Bankman-inner Fried’s circle, such as former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang, FTX co-founder and former chief technology officer, in cooperating with prosecutors in their case against the former FTX CEO. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to eight felony charges and will stand trial this fall.
A request for comment was not immediately returned by the Department of Justice.
For his role in the scheme, Singh is also reportedly facing potential charges from regulators such as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Singh received a $543 million personal loan from Alameda Research, according to filings from the FTX bankruptcy estate led by John Jay Ray III.
Singh, 27, graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, where he met his longtime girlfriend, Claire Watanabe, who later became FTX’s head of marketing and human resources. The couple shared a luxurious Bahamas penthouse with Bankman-Fried, Ellison, Wang, and Singh, as well as Watanabe’s goldendoodle dog.
Singh, like Bankman-Fried, Ellison, and Wang, was a staunch supporter of effective altruism, and the quartet served on the FTX Foundation’s board of directors.
