Sam Bankman-Fried must now convince a jury that the former crypto king was not a crook

By KEN SWEET
AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — For a while, Sam Bankman-Fried tried to convince politicians and the public that he was the next J.P. Morgan. Now, he has to convince a jury that he wasn’t, in reality, the next Bernie Madoff. The trial of Bankman-Fried, the founder of failed cryptocurrency brokerage FTX, will begin Tuesday with jury selection. Prosecutors from the Southern District of New York are expected to lay out a case against Bankman-Fried that shows he stole billions of dollars in FTX customer deposits to fund his hedge fund and make millions of dollars on illegal campaign donations to Democrats and Republicans in an attempt to buy political influence over cryptocurrency regulation in Washington.