Indicted FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried leaves federal court in New York City, July 26, 2023.
Amr Alfiqi | Reuters
A judge in New York will decide whether to send Sam Bankman-Fried to prison at a hearing beginning at 2 p.m. ET on Friday.
Federal prosecutors have asked U.S. District Judge Louis A. Kaplan to revoke the FTX founder’s bail on allegations of witness misconduct. If Judge Kaplan takes the government’s side, Bankman-Fried will be taken directly from a Manhattan court hearing and will remain in custody pending a criminal trial, which is scheduled to begin Oct. 2.
Since being arrested in December, Bankman-Fried has been on bail for $250 million and is required to remain at his parents’ home in Palo Alto, Calif. .
Bankman-Fried’s court appearance Friday follows a series of pretrial hearings related to the former billionaire’s continued media dealings, which the Justice Department has characterized as “a pattern of witness tampering and circumvention of bail terms.” is the latest in
Judge Kaplan had previously issued a direct and harsh warning in July over Bankman-Fried’s conversations with the media.
Attorneys for the New York Times and members of the press, including the Freedom of the Press Committee, filed letters opposing Bankman-Fried’s detention, citing concerns over free speech. Defense attorneys similarly argued Bankman-Fried asserted First Amendment rights in interviews with journalists and did not violate bail conditions.
This discovery process has also helped the Bankman-Fried case.
Lawyers representing former FTX chief should properly prepare for trial if Bankman-Fried is incarcerated due to the vast amount of discovery documents that can only be accessed from a computer with internet access argued that it would not be possible.
In its motion to detain Bankman-Fried, the government said he had sent more than 100 emails to the media and made more than 1,000 phone calls to journalists in the past few months. . The final issue, according to prosecutors, was Bankman Freed’s decision to leak the personal diary of his ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison to the New York Times.
Ellison, also the former chief executive of Bankman-Fried’s failed cryptocurrency hedge fund Alameda Research, has been cooperating with the government since December and is believed to be a leading witness in the prosecution. . Ellison pleaded guilty in a federal lawsuit in December 2022.
“Faced with a series of conditions limiting the defendant’s internet and phone use, the defendant turned to face-to-face conspiracy,” prosecutors said of Bankman-Fried, adding that the amended bail conditions included limiting internet access. and Internet access bans included. smartphone use.
The government added that Bankman-Fried called one of the authors more than 100 times before the Times article was published, many of which lasted about 20 minutes.
Prosecutors have accused Bankman-Fried, who faces several wire fraud and securities fraud charges in connection with the multi-billion dollar FTX scam, as an attempt to discredit Mr. Ellison. characterizing it as an “indirect means of witness intimidation through the press.”
Prosecutors had to drop the charges twice to comply with an extradition agreement with the Bahamas, where Bankman-Fried was previously held in custody. The government wrote to the judge that it plans to file a new and superseding indictment next week.
