By LARRY NEUMEISTER (Associated Press)
NEW YORK (AP) — FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried left a federal courtroom in handcuffs Friday after a decide revoked his bail after concluding that the fallen cryptocurrency wiz had repeatedly tried to affect witnesses towards him.
Bankman-Fried seemed down at his palms as Judge Lewis A. Kaplan defined at size why he believed the California man had repeatedly pushed the boundaries of his $250 million bail package deal to a degree that Kaplan may now not make sure the safety of the neighborhood, together with prosecutors’ witnesses, except the 31-year-old was behind bars.
At the conclusion of the listening to, Bankman-Fried took off his go well with jacket and tie and turned his watch and different private belongings over to his legal professionals. The clanging of handcuffs may very well be heard as his palms had been cuffed in entrance of him. He was then led out of the courtroom by U.S. marshals.
It was a spectacular fall for a person as soon as considered by many as a savvy crypto visionary who had testified earlier than Congress and employed celebrities together with Larry David, Tom Brady and Stephen Curry to advertise his companies.
Kaplan mentioned there was possible trigger to consider Bankman-Fried had tried to “tamper with witnesses at least twice” since his December arrest, most lately by displaying a journalist the non-public writings of a former girlfriend and key witness towards him and in January when he reached out to FTX’s basic counsel with an encrypted communication.
The decide mentioned he concluded there was a likelihood that Bankman-Fried had tried to affect each anticipated trial witnesses “and quite likely others whose names we don’t even know” to get them to “back off, to have them hedge their cooperation with the government.”
Bankman-Fried’s legal professionals insisted that their consumer’s motives had been harmless and he shouldn’t be jailed for attempting to guard his popularity towards a barrage of unfavorable information tales.
Attorney Mark Cohen requested the decide to droop his incarceration order for a right away enchantment, however Kaplan rejected the request. Within an hour, protection legal professionals had filed a discover of enchantment.
Bankman-Fried had been beneath home arrest at his dad and mom’ dwelling in Palo Alto, California, since his December extradition from the Bahamas on costs that he defrauded traders in his companies and illegally diverted hundreds of thousands of {dollars}’ value of cryptocurrency from prospects utilizing his FTX change.
His bail package deal severely restricted his web and telephone utilization.
The decide famous that the strict guidelines didn’t cease him from reaching out in January to a high FTX lawyer, saying he “would really love to reconnect and see if there’s a way for us to have a constructive relationship, use each other as resources when possible, or at least vet things with each other.”
At a February listening to, Kaplan mentioned the communication “suggests to me that maybe he has committed or attempted to commit a federal felony while on release.”
On Friday, Kaplan mentioned he was rejecting protection claims that the communication was benign.
Instead, he mentioned, it appears to be an invite for the FTX basic counsel “to get together with Bankman-Fried” in order that their recollections “are on the same page.”
Two weeks in the past, prosecutors stunned Bankman-Fried’s attorneys by demanding his incarceration, saying he violated these guidelines by displaying The New York Times the non-public writings of Caroline Ellison, his former girlfriend and the ex-CEO of Alameda Research, a cryptocurrency buying and selling hedge fund that was certainly one of his companies.
Prosecutors maintained he was attempting to sully her popularity and affect potential jurors who is likely to be summoned for his October trial by sharing deep ideas about her job and the romantic relationship she had with Bankman-Fried.
The decide mentioned Friday that the excerpts of Ellison’s communications that Bankman-Fried had shared with a reporter had been the sorts of issues that someone who’d been in a relationship with someone “would be very unlikely to share with anybody, lest The New York Times, except to hurt, discredit, and frighten the subject of the material.”
Ellison pleaded responsible in December to legal costs carrying a possible penalty of 110 years in jail. She has agreed to testify towards Bankman-Fried as a part of a deal that might result in a extra lenient sentence.
Bankman-Fried’s legal professionals argued he in all probability failed in a quest to defend his popularity as a result of the article solid Ellison in a sympathetic mild. They additionally mentioned prosecutors exaggerated the function Bankman-Fried had within the article.
They mentioned prosecutors had been attempting to get their consumer locked up by providing proof consisting of “innuendo, speculation, and scant facts.”
Since prosecutors made their detention request, Kaplan had imposed a gag order barring public feedback by individuals collaborating within the trial, together with Bankman-Fried.
David McCraw, a lawyer for the Times, had written to the decide, noting the First Amendment implications of any blanket gag order, in addition to public curiosity in Ellison and her cryptocurrency buying and selling agency.
Ellison confessed to a central function in a scheme defrauding traders of billions of {dollars} that went undetected, McCraw mentioned.
“It is not surprising that the public wants to know more about who she is and what she did and that news organizations would seek to provide to the public timely, pertinent, and fairly reported information about her, as The Times did in its story,” McCraw mentioned.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”