FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrives at Manhattan Federal Court for a court appearance in Latest York, United States on June 15, 2023.
Fatih Aktas/ | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Sam Bankman-Fried will head to jail on Friday after a judge sided with a request by federal prosecutors to revoke the FTX founder’s bail over alleged witness tampering. Bankman-Fried can be remanded to custody directly from a court hearing in Latest York, where he’ll remain ahead of his criminal trial – which is as a consequence of begin on Oct. 2.
Judge Lewis Kaplan denied Bankman-Fried’s request for delayed detention pending an appeal.
Since his arrest in December, Bankman-Fried had been out on a $250 million bail package which requires him to stay at his parents’ Palo Alto, California house.
Bankman-Fried’s court appearance on Friday is the most recent in a series of pre-trial hearings related to the ex-billionaire’s continued dealings with the press – exchanges which the Justice Department characterizes as a “pattern of witness tampering and evading his bail conditions.”
Judge Kaplan previously issued a direct and stern warning to Bankman-Fried in July over his conversations with the media.
Members of the press, including counsel for The Latest York Times and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, had filed letters objecting to Bankman-Fried’s detention, citing free speech concerns. Defense attorneys had similarly argued that Bankman-Fried was asserting his first amendment right and didn’t violate any terms of his bail conditions by speaking with journalists.
The defense had also been hoping that the invention process would help Bankman-Fried’s case.
Lawyers representing the previous FTX chief stipulated that with Bankman-Fried jailed, he wouldn’t give you the chance to properly prepare for his trial as a consequence of the mountainous amounts of discovery documents only accessible via a pc with web access.
Within the motion requesting Bankman-Fried’s detention, the federal government said that, over the past several months, the defendant had sent over 100 emails to the media and had remodeled 1,000 phone calls to members of the press. The ultimate straw, based on prosecutors, was Bankman-Fried leaking private diary entries of his ex-girlfriend, Caroline Ellison, to the Latest York Times. Ellison pleaded guilty to federal charges in Dec. 2022.
Ellison, who can be the previous chief executive of Bankman-Fried’s failed crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research, has been cooperating with the federal government since December and is predicted to be a star witness for the prosecution.
“Faced with a series of conditions meant to limit the defendant’s use of the web and the phone, the defendant pivoted to in-person machinations,” the prosecution said of Bankman-Fried, whose revised bail conditions include restricted web access and a ban from smartphone use.
The federal government added that Bankman-Fried had over 100 phone calls with certainly one of the authors of the Times story prior to publication – a lot of which lasted for roughly 20 minutes.
The prosecution described the hassle by Bankman-Fried – who faces several wire and securities fraud charges related to the alleged multibillion-dollar FTX fraud – as an try to discredit Ellison, characterizing it as a “technique of indirect witness intimidation through the press.”
It’s an argument that proved sufficient to persuade Judge Kaplan to send Bankman-Fried to jail ahead of his trial.
The prosecution has needed to cull charges twice to comply with an extradition agreement inked with The Bahamas – where Bankman-Fried was previously held in custody. The federal government told the Judge in a letter that next week it plans to file a latest superseding indictment.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.
