A lawsuit filed Tuesday in Federal Court claims the cryptocurrency company FTX paid Broward Democrat consultant Barbara Miller $14,000 a month to run its “hackathon” charity event. FTX filed the lawsuit against Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried, parents of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
According to The New York Times, “Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried, longtime Stanford law professors, of using their ‘access and influence within the FTX enterprise to enrich themselves.’ The lawsuit seeks to claw back millions of dollars the couple received from their son.”
Barbara Miller is the sister of Joe Bankman.
REDBROWARD was first to exposed the pivotal roles Barbara Miller and Joe Bankman played in the development of the 2022 FTX Hackathon And Crypto Summit which promised a $1,000,000 prize to Broward school students.
In a February 2022 Facebook post, Miller’s husband, James Fox Miller wrote, “Barbara is working for FTX and really enjoying it. Her goal in life has always been to leave the world a little better than she found it. Sam is doing it big-time.”
In March 2022, three Broward high school students won $500,000 for their entry in the FTX Hackathon and Crypto Summit at the FTX Arena in Miami.
Since 2021, the event welcomed students from Broward, Palm Beach and Miami Dade. In a promotional video, Bankman said the 2023 event would welcome students from across the United States.
But, according to this new lawsuit, the Hackathon was a “flagrant waste of FTX Group funds.”
Calling it “a high-profile and expensive bust,” the lawsuit claims attendance for the Hackathon was fewer than 1,200 people in the Miami Arena which has a 19,000 person capacity. FTX lawyers claim the Hackathon cost more than $2.3 million dollars.
The FTX lawsuit claims Barbara Miller was paid $14,000 a month to plan the “high-cost, low-turnout flop.”
