Sam Bankman-Fried is expected to appear in court next week in response to criminal charges, which allege he defrauded investors and looted billions of dollars in client funds during his failed cryptocurrency exchange.

The 30-year-old will be arraigned three days into the new year at 2 p.m. on January 3 before U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan Federal Court, the court confirmed to DailyMail.com.

Kaplan received the case on Tuesday, after the original judge recused herself because her husband’s law firm had advised FTX before its shocking collapse.

Sam Bankman-Fried, before his stunning fall and arrest, portrayed himself as a financially responsible business leader advocating for increased regulation of his industry.

SBF is expected to enter a plea before Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan federal court

SBF is accused of engaging in a year-long ‘fraud of epic proportions’, which it executed primarily by using client deposits to support its trading company Alameda Research, as well as to purchase real estate and make record political contributions.

Bankman-Fried faces two counts of wire fraud and six counts of conspiracy, including to launder money and commit campaign finance violations.

If found guilty, the 30-year-old faces decades in prison.

Judge Kaplan is best known for being the judge overseeing two civil lawsuits brought against former President Donald Trump by writer E. Jean Carroll claiming she was defamed when Trump denied raping her to Bergdorf Goodman almost 30 years ago.

Kaplan, who has a reputation as a sensible jurist, also oversaw the case brought by Prince Andrew’s accuser Virginia Giuffre, who alleged the royal sexually assaulted her when she was 17 at the London residence of Ghislaine Maxwell.

Meanwhile, SBF has recruited top private investigator Jimmy Harkins, who previously worked for Ghislaine Maxwell, among other figures.

Harkins was seen escorting SBF from court last week. The failed crypto-boss also hired Christian Everdell, one of Maxwell’s lawyers.

Jimmy Harkins is seen escorting SBF from court last week in New York after being released on $250million bail

Prior to his Dec. 12 arrest in the Bahamas, SBF admitted to failings in risk management at FTX, but maintained that he did not believe he was criminally responsible.

Two of his top associates, former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison and former FTX CTO Gary Wang, pleaded guilty to their role in FTX’s collapse and agreed to cooperate with the prosecutors.

Bankman-Fried was released Dec. 22 on a whopping $250 million bail and was ordered to remain under house arrest with his parents at their $4 million home in Palo Alto, Calif., where they teach at the Stanford Law School.

FTX filed for bankruptcy protection on Nov. 11 as the once-leased business crumbled under the weight of its own failing system.

Its newly appointed chief executive, John Ray, told Congress on Dec. 13 that the exchange lost $8 billion in customer money while being run by “grossly inexperienced and unsophisticated individuals.”

SBF was placed under house arrest at his childhood home, which is owned by his parents, Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman (outside court in Manhattan on Thursday left)

Having spent the holidays under house arrest with his parents in Stanford, California. SBF is now expected to report to Manhattan court on January 3

The dramatic collapse of crypto exchange FTX has left behind a tangle of Bahamian real estate properties linked to the company and its founder. It was revealed that they spent $256.3 million in 2022 alone.

FTX lawyers recently said the company spent $300 million buying properties in the Bahamas for its senior executives, noting that FTX was run as SBF’s “personal fiefdom.”

A separate review of real estate records by Reuters estimated that FTX, its senior executives and SBF’s family purchased at least 19 properties worth nearly $121 million in the Bahamas over the past two years.

Now Bahamian regulators are trying to get the properties back, telling a federal bankruptcy judge in Delaware that allowing the properties to be administered in US courts would be both administratively inefficient and illegal under US law. Bahamas.