- Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) has petitioned to be out of jail 5 days a week to prepare for his trial.
- The request came one week after SBF was sent back to jail.
- Previously, SBF’s $250 million bail was revoked on grounds of witness tampering.
Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the legally-troubled co-founder of FTX, has petitioned to be allowed out of jail five days a week to collaborate with his legal team on his defense strategy at the federal courthouse situated in Manhattan. This move comes one week after his $250 million bail was revoked following allegations of witness tampering.
In a letter addressed to US District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Friday and as published in a Bloomberg article, Bankman-Fried’s attorneys argued that the 31-year-old was unable to adequately review the substantial volume of case documents while confined at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
The legal team, led by Christian Everdell, emphasized that the recent release of a substantial 750,000 pages of Slack communications, which were meant to be disclosed months earlier, posed a significant challenge to Bankman-Fried’s defense preparation under the current circumstances.
Everdell proposed that permitting Bankman-Fried to work directly with his legal counsel and utilize an internet-enabled laptop within the courthouse premises would expedite the review process. This, the defense team contends, is crucial given the impending fraud trial scheduled to commence in October.
Bankman-Fried, who has pleaded not guilty, faces charges of orchestrating a multi-year fraudulent scheme that allegedly granted him unauthorized access to billions of dollars belonging to FTX customers.
Prosecutors, however, expressed concerns regarding Bankman-Fried’s compliance with providing essential information pertinent to his planned defense strategy. They have stipulated that unless he promptly discloses details about the advice he received from his legal team and its sources, the defense should not be admissible during the trial.
The prosecution suggested alternative options, including loading documents onto hard drives for use within the Metropolitan Detention Center, the primary holding facility for federal defendants in New York. Despite initial thoughts of transferring Bankman-Fried to a smaller facility to allow him access to an internet-enabled laptop, this idea faced opposition from prison officials.
Notably, Bankman-Fried’s previous use of the internet while on bail in California contributed to the revocation of his bail. Judge Kaplan determined that his excessive communication via text and use of a virtual private network exceeded acceptable boundaries.
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