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Facing intense legal pressures, Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder of FTX, is earnestly seeking a temporary break from his jail cell. His goal? To sift through a mountain of evidence with his defense team. The backdrop of this plea is the federal courthouse situated in Manhattan.
In a letter penned to US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, Bankman-Fried’s attorneys laid bare the struggles of their client. The Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, known for its tough conditions and poor reputation among its inmates, is not the best place to comb through extensive case documents.
Just last week the government produced three quarters of a million pages of Slack communications, which were supposed to be produced months ago, that Mr. Bankman-Fried will have no hope of reviewing under this schedule
Christian Everdell, a legal representative for Bankman-Fried, recently expressed his astonishment at the volume of Slack messages they’ve been handed — a staggering three-quarters of a million pages that should’ve been delivered months ago. Everdell stressed the necessity for his client to collaborate with his defense team in person, facilitated by an internet-ready laptop, especially given that the fraud trial is on the horizon in October.
Two Days a Week Out of Jail Not Enough?
Yet, there’s another twist. Federal Prosecutors have offered Bankman-Fried only two days a week to delve into these files — a constraint his legal team staunchly opposes, deeming it a breach of his sixth amendment rights.
This is entirely inadequate and Mr. Bankman-Fried will not be able to meaningfully participate in his defense, as is his right under the Sixth Amendment.
As for the prosecutors, they’ve got their reservations. They’ve flagged concerns about Bankman-Fried’s adherence to defense guidelines, asserting he has yet to come clean about the advice he leaned on, leading to his alleged actions. Prosecutors believe that without full disclosure of this advice and its origins, it shouldn’t be admitted in court. Their solution? Providing Bankman-Fried with hard drives loaded with the necessary documents, since a laptop, they claim, isn’t practical. They even considered a transfer to a more lenient facility but hit a wall with prison officials.
Now, let’s rewind a bit. How did Bankman-Fried land in this mess? Reportedly, Judge Kaplan sent him back to the cell because of allegations of witness tampering. Further complicating matters, he was found excessively communicating with various individuals and using a virtual private network while under bail in California.
But that’s not the end of it. New claims from the Department of Justice (DOJ) have emerged. The indictment released on Monday pins Bankman-Fried for misusing FTX customer deposits, alleging he diverted these funds for personal gains, to the tune of $100 million in political campaign donations in the run-up to the 2022 US midterms. The indictment paints a picture of a man, fully aware of FTX’s monetary deficits, yet unabashedly directing stolen cash towards personal ventures and political endeavors.
As the legal whirlwind continues, all eyes are on how this will unfold for the embattled crypto mogul.
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