Middle-aged NFL legend Tom Brady
recently hinted at the possibility that he might stage a Michael Jordan-style comeback. He just might have to in order to stay whole thanks to disgraced Democratic mega-donor Sam Bankman-Fried’s latest act of betrayal.
Bankman-Fried, the convicted fraudster whose mom figures is
too autistic for prison, has apparently agreed to cooperate with the group of cryptocurrency users suing various FTX influencers, including Brady and his ex-wife.
Background
Blaze News
previously reported that Tom Brady and his former spouse, Gisele Bündchen, were named in a class-action lawsuit filed in Miami’s Southern District of Florida federal court in November 2022, along with former NBA star Shaquille O’Neal, Golden State Warriors basketballer Stephen Curry, Los Angeles Angels baseballer Shohei Ohtani, “Shark Tank’s” Kevin O’Leary, and “Seinfeld” cocreator Larry David.
The class-action complaint launched months after the collapse of the crypto exchange company FTX alleges that Brady and the other brand ambassadors were responsible for “misrepresentations and omissions” in the advertisements in which they told acquaintances to unwittingly throw their money away into “the FTX Ponzi scheme.”
Brady and Bündchen each took an equity stake in FTX as part of a 2021 ambassadorial partnership. While Brady became a brand ambassador, Bündchen took on the role of FTX’s environmental and social initiatives advisor. The former couple appeared in a series of FTX commercials.
Curry similarly got into bed with the ill-fated company, signing on to a “long-term partnership” with FTX in September 2021 in exchange for a now-worthless equity stake. In one advertisement, Curry said, “With FTX, I have everything I need to buy, sell, and trade crypto safely.”
Larry David was featured in a Super Bowl commercial for FTX where he played a number of characters rejecting historically consequential ideas, such as the light bulb. The advertisement ultimately showed David reject FTX, then suggested, “Don’t be like Larry.”
While O’Neal managed to avoid being served in the lawsuit for several months, last April he
became the last of the celebrities to be served a legal notice.
No honor among FTX alumni
An April 19 court filing indicates the plaintiffs in the case have reached a settlement with Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison last month for his orchestration of multiple fraudulent schemes and ordered to pay $11 billion in forfeiture, reported Cointelegraph.
The fraudster will cooperate with the investors, and, in exchange, they will drop their civil liabilities against him.
The filing states, “[Bankman-Fried] has knowledge and other information that Class Representatives and Class Counsel believe will be valuable to Class Representatives’ cases against other defendants in the FTX MDL [multidistrict litigation], particularly relating to the underlying actions and their connection to Miami, Florida, where FTX’s U.S. headquarters were based, as well as each MDL Defendants’ knowledge of and assistance with the actions and connections to other states in which jurisdictions over those Defendants is asserted.”
Should the court approve the deal, Bankman-Fried would fork over non-privileged documents concerning his assets and his investment in the
AI start-up Anthropic, proof of a negative net worth, and documents about the FTX brand ambassadors, reported the Daily Mail.
The Democratic mega-donor also apparently agreed to surrender any information he has about venture capital firms that invested in FTX as well as any accountants or lawyers who worked with the defunct crypto exchange.
CoinDesk
reported that the fraudster’s former friends and codefendants Caroline Ellison, Nishad Singh, and Gary Wang, have — along with FTX lawyer Dan Friedberg — made similar settlement agreements with the class-action plaintiff’s attorneys.
A number of middling talents who promoted FTX, including Jaspreet Singh, Tom Nash, Jeremy Lefebvre, and Graham Stephan, have apparently also settled, as has Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence.
While flipping on his former celebrity boosters, Bankman-Fried appears to be trying to dodge accountability for his crimes. Earlier this month, the former multibillionaire
appealed his fraud convictions and prison sentence.
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Con man, Convict, Fraudster, Sam bankman-fried, Bankman-fried, Larry david, Tom brady, Class-action lawsuit, Lawsuit, Shaquille o’neal, Ftx, Crypto, News
