FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried arrives at court in fight to stay out of jail

Sam Bankman-Fried, the indicted founding father of the bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency change, is in a Manhattan courtroom on Friday the place he might study whether or not he must put together for his October fraud trial from behind the jailhouse door.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan is presiding over a listening to to resolve whether or not Bankman-Fried ought to stay free.

Bankman-Fried, 31, has pleaded not responsible to stealing billions of {dollars} in FTX buyer funds to plug losses at his hedge fund Alameda Research.

He has been largely confined to his dad and mom’ Palo Alto, California, house on $250 million bond since his December 2022 arrest, however the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan now desires him jailed for witness tampering.

Prosecutors first made their shock request to jail the previous billionaire in a July 26 listening to, saying he “crossed a line” by sharing former romantic companion Caroline Ellison’s private writings with a New York Times reporter.

Ellison had been Alameda’s chief government, and is anticipated to testify in opposition to Bankman-Fried after pleading responsible to fraud and agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors.

At Friday’s listening to, prosecutor Danielle Sassoon stated that if Bankman-Fried weren’t jailed, “at the very least the government thinks that home incarceration would be appropriate,” with Bankman-Fried having no guests, and no web entry besides to evaluation trial supplies and converse together with his legal professionals.Two different former members of Bankman-Fried’s inside circle have additionally entered responsible pleas.

Bankman-Fried’s legal professionals have stated prosecutors mischaracterized his intentions in sharing Ellison’s writings, arguing he wished to defend his popularity and had a proper to talk to the press.

In the July 26 listening to, Kaplan restricted Bankman-Fried from talking publicly about his case, and requested each side to handle whether or not jail was mandatory.

The gag order has additionally drawn consideration from news media together with the Times, which in an Aug. 2 letter to the decide stated the measure must be loosened to solely limit feedback that might intervene with a good trial.

A July 20 article within the newspaper contained excerpts from Ellison’s private Google paperwork previous to FTX’s collapse.

She described being “unhappy and overwhelmed” along with her job and feeling “hurt/rejected” from her private breakup with Bankman-Fried.

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