FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Denies Witness Tampering, Seeks to Keep away from Jailtime

Sam Bankman-Fried, the indicted founding father of the bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency alternate, on Tuesday, mentioned he by no means sought to intimidate witnesses at his scheduled October fraud trial, and there’s no motive to jail him.

In a letter to US District Choose Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan, Bankman-Fried mentioned prosecutors mischaracterised his intentions in giving a New York Instances reporter the writings of former romantic companion Caroline Ellison, who is predicted to testify towards him.

“Mr. Bankman-Fried’s contact with the New York Instances reporter was not an try and intimidate Ms. Ellison or taint the jury pool,” his lawyer, Mark Cohen, wrote within the letter. “It was a correct train of his rights to make honest touch upon an article already in progress.”Bankman-Fried, 31, has pleaded not responsible to stealing billions of {dollars} in FTX buyer funds to plug losses at his hedge fund Alameda Analysis, the place Ellison was chief govt.

He has been largely confined to his mother and father’ Palo Alto, California residence on a $250 million (roughly Rs. 2,100 crore) bond since his December 2022 arrest.

Ellison is one in all three former members of Bankman-Fried’s internal circle who pleaded responsible to fraud costs and agreed to cooperate with the US Lawyer’s workplace in Manhattan.

Kaplan barred Bankman-Fried from talking concerning the case and requested either side to submit written arguments about doable jail.

In an affidavit submitted by the defence, Laurence Tribe, a Harvard College constitutional regulation professor, mentioned Bankman-Fried had a proper to “keep away from projecting a false picture of somebody who’s media-shy or, worse, somebody whose consciousness of guilt makes him shun the media.”

Bankman-Fried’s attorneys additionally argued that restricted web entry on the Metropolitan Detention Heart in Brooklyn, the place he can be held, would go away him unable to arrange for trial.

Prosecutors could reply to Bankman-Fried’s letter by Thursday. It isn’t identified when Kaplan will rule.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

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