Sam Banksmen-Fried, the former FTX CEO, was ordered to jail on Friday after a judge revoked his bail for alleged witness tampering.
The disgraced crypto mogul had been living under house arrest at his parents’ home in Palo Alto, Calif., after posting an eye-popping $250 million bond.
Disgraced FTX founder Sam Banksman-Fried has another big problem: He won’t shut up
Disgraced FTX founder Sam Banksman-Fried has another big problem: He won’t shut up
Banksmen-Fried, widely known as SBF, was awaiting a trial set to begin on Oct. 2 after being charged by the U.S. government last year of orchestrating one of the largest financial frauds in history. The former crypto star faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life in jail if convicted of those charges.
But government prosecutors had sought to revoke his bail and have SBF sent to jail until his trial after accusing the FTX founder of witness tampering.
Prosecutors accused SBF of leaking private diary entries of his former girlfriend, Caroline Ellison, to The New York Times.
Ellison was the former head of Alameda Research, a hedge fund SBF co-founded. After pleading guilty to fraud charges herself, Ellison was likely to testify against Bankman-Fried in court.
On Friday, the U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan sided with prosecutors and ordered SBF detained, saying the FTX CEO had tried to intimidate witnesses and taint the jury pool.
“There is probable cause to believe that the defendant has attempted to tamper with witnesses at least twice,” Kaplan said at the hearing according to media reports.
SBF’s lawyers have appealed the decision.
Talking to media
The alleged leak of Ellison’s diary, which included reflections on her relationship with Bankman-Fried and some of her professional misgivings, was the last straw for prosecutors.
Hours after the Times posted the piece, the prosecution filed a formal request with the judge to modify SBF’s bail terms. They argued that by leaking the documents the defendant hoped “to portray a key cooperator testifying against him in a poor and inculpatory light.”
It was an attempt, they said, to “intimidate and corruptly persuade Ellison with respect to her upcoming trial testimony, as well as an effort to influence or prevent the testimony of other potential trial witnesses by creating the specter that their most intimate business is at risk of being reported in the press.”READ MORE