Sam Bankman-Fried prosecutors ask judge to toughen bail conditions

Manhattan federal prosecutors said on Friday that disgraced cryptocurrency executive Sam Bankman-Fried tried to contact a potential witness in his criminal case, and they’re asking a judge to impose new terms of detention. bail limiting his ability to communicate with former colleagues.

In a court filing, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said Mr. Bankman-Fried sent messages via email and the Signal encrypted messaging app this month to the General Counsel of the US branch of FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange he founded. . Mr Bankman-Fried, 30, has been charged with fraud, money laundering and campaign finance violations related to the implosion of FTX last year.

The communication was “suggestive of an effort to influence the potential testimony of Witness-1,” the filing says. “This is particularly concerning given that the accused knows that Witness 1 has information that would tend to incriminate him.”

Prosecutors have asked Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who is overseeing Mr. Bankman-Fried’s case, to bar the contractor from contacting current and former FTX employees or using Signal or other crypto apps. to communicate.

A spokesperson for Mr. Bankman-Fried did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Bankman-Fried built FTX into one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world before the company filed for bankruptcy in November. He was arrested in December at his home in the Bahamas, where FTX was based, and later extradited to the United States to face criminal charges. Judge Kaplan granted him bail on very restrictive terms, confining him to his parents’ home near the Stanford University campus in Northern California.

Mr. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

Since his confinement at home, Mr Bankman-Fried has entertained visitors, including author Michael Lewis, who is writing a book about him. He has also begun mounting a defense, writing articles on Substack that detail his version of the events that led to FTX’s collapse.

According to Friday’s filing, Mr. Bankman-Fried wrote to FTX US’s general counsel on Jan. 15, saying he “would really like to reconnect and see if there’s a way for us to have a relationship.” constructively, to use us as resources”. when possible, or at least check things out with each other.

Prosecutors said the witness “has direct knowledge of the defendant’s conduct during the indicted conspiracies” and participated in communications on Signal and the Slack messaging system with a small group of insiders the month FTX s collapsed. Mr. Bankman-Fried also contacted other current and former FTX employees, according to the filing.

The document does not identify the witness by name. FTX US’ general counsel is Ryne Miller, according to his LinkedIn page.

For much of his tenure at FTX, Bankman-Fried has relied on Signal, which gives people the ability to automatically delete posts. Prosecutors say he also ordered employees of FTX and Alameda Research, a hedge fund he founded, to automatically delete their communications after 30 days or less.

“The automatic removal of Slack and Signal communications from FTX and Alameda hampered the government’s investigation,” the filing said. “Potential witnesses described relevant and incriminating conversations with the defendant that took place on Slack and Signal which have already been automatically deleted.”

In the court filing, prosecutors said Mr. Bankman-Fried’s use of Signal could hamper their efforts to determine whether he attempted to contact other potential witnesses while incarcerated.

“The combination of proposed bail conditions would more effectively prevent the defendant from obstructing justice,” the filing said.