Trump names FTX and Do Kwon attorney as Manhattan’s top interim federal prosecutor

One of the stars of the Sam Bankman-Fried proceedings has a caller gig.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump named Danielle Sassoon the interim caput of the US Attorney’s bureau successful the Southern District of New York, which includes Manhattan and portion of confederate New York state.

Sassoon was antecedently 1 of the pb prosecutors successful the national government’s lawsuit against Sam Bankman-Fried, the co-founder and erstwhile CEO of FTX. The erstwhile crypto tycoon was convicted of 7 counts of fraud and conspiracy and sentenced to 25 years successful prison. Bankman-Fried has appealed his conviction.

Sassoon questioned immoderate of the government’s prima witnesses, including Caroline Ellison, the erstwhile co-CEO of the FTX-linked crypto hedge money Alameda Research. Ellison was sentenced to 2 years successful situation successful September for her relation successful the crash.

Sassoon volition pb the Southern District until Jay Clayton, Trump’s prime for US Attorney, passes the confirmation process.

Neither Sassoon nor a spokesperson for the Department of Justice instantly responded to a petition for comment.

Conservative star

Sassoon has a star-studded resume.

She went to Harvard arsenic an undergraduate, Yale for instrumentality school, and clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court justice who died successful 2016.

After a stint astatine a backstage instrumentality firm, she moved implicit to the Southern District.

During her tenure, she not lone helped pb the prosecution of Bankman-Fried but besides his lieutenants, including Ryan Salame, who was sentenced to much than 7 years successful prison.

She is 1 of six prosecutors assigned to the US’s lawsuit against Do Kwon, the laminitis of the collapsed stablecoin TerraUSD.

Unlike her erstwhile brag Damian Williams, a Democrat and the past caput of the Southern District, Sassoon is simply a noted conservative.

Justice Scalia was 1 of the astir right-leaning justices successful the Supreme Court during his tenure.

And Sassoon has a bio connected the website for The Federalist Society, a blimpish ineligible organisation.

Ben Weiss is DL News’ Dubai Correspondent. Got a tip? Email astatine [email protected].