9 months ago
75 Indicted FTX laminitis Sam Bankman-Fried leaves the U.S. Courthouse successful New York City, July 26, 2023.
Amr Alfiky | Reuters
A New York justice volition determine successful a fewer hours from present whether to nonstop Sam Bankman-Fried to jail.
Federal prosecutors person asked U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to revoke the FTX founder's bail implicit alleged witnesser tampering. If Judge Kaplan sides with the government, Bankman-Fried volition beryllium remanded to custody straight from a tribunal proceeding successful Manhattan, wherever helium would stay up of his transgression trial, owed to statesman connected Oct. 2.
Since his arrest successful December, Bankman-Fried had been retired connected a $250 cardinal bail package which requires him to stay astatine his parents' Palo Alto, California house.
Bankman-Fried's tribunal quality connected Friday is the latest successful a bid of pre-trial hearings related to the ex-billionaire's continued dealings with the property – exchanges which the Justice Department characterizes arsenic a "pattern of witnesser tampering and evading his bail conditions."
Judge Kaplan antecedently issued a nonstop and stern informing to Bankman-Fried successful July implicit his conversations with the media.
Members of the press, including counsel for The New York Times and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, person filed letters objecting to Bankman-Fried's detention, citing escaped code concerns. Defense attorneys person likewise argued that Bankman-Fried was asserting his archetypal amendment close and did not interruption immoderate presumption of his bail conditions by speaking with journalists.
The find process is besides helping Bankman-Fried's case.
Lawyers representing the erstwhile FTX main person argued that if Bankman-Fried is jailed, helium would not beryllium capable to decently hole for his proceedings owed to the mountainous amounts of find documents lone accessible via a machine with net access.
In the question requesting Bankman-Fried's detention, the authorities said that, implicit the past respective months, the suspect had sent implicit 100 emails to the media and had made implicit 1,000 telephone calls to members of the press. The last straw, according to prosecutors, was Bankman-Fried's determination to leak backstage diary entries of his ex-girlfriend, Caroline Ellison, to the New York Times.
Ellison, who is besides the erstwhile main enforcement of Bankman-Fried's failed crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research, has been cooperating with the authorities since December and is expected to beryllium a prima witnesser for the prosecution. Ellison pleaded guilty to national charges successful Dec. 2022.
"Faced with a bid of conditions meant to bounds the defendant's usage of the net and the phone, the suspect pivoted to in-person machinations," the prosecution said of Bankman-Fried, whose revised bail conditions see restricted net entree and a prohibition from smartphone use.
The authorities added that Bankman-Fried had much than 100 telephone calls with 1 of the authors of the Times communicative anterior to publication, galore of which lasted for astir 20 minutes.
The prosecution described the effort by Bankman-Fried – who faces respective ligament and securities fraud charges related to the multibillion-dollar FTX fraud – arsenic an effort to discredit Ellison, characterizing it arsenic a "means of indirect witnesser intimidation done the press."
Prosecutors person had to cull charges twice to comply with an extradition statement inked with The Bahamas – wherever Bankman-Fried was antecedently held successful custody. The authorities told the Judge successful a missive that adjacent week it plans to record a caller superseding indictment.
