NEW YORK, Jan 28 (Reuters) – Lawyers for Sam Bankman-Fried urged a US judge on Saturday not to bar the indicted FTX cryptocurrency executive from communicating with former colleagues as part of his bail, prosecutors said. Said to “sandbag” the process. The client in “the worst possible light”.
The lawyers were responding to a Friday night request by federal prosecutors that Bankman-Fried not be allowed to speak with most employees of FTX or its Alameda Research hedge fund without the presence of lawyers, or the encrypted messaging app Signal. Or use Slack and automatically delete the messages. ,
Bankman-Fried, 30, has been free on $250 million bond since pleading not guilty to fraud charges in the billion-dollar robbery from now-bankrupt FTX.
Prosecutors said their request was in response to a recent attempt by Bankman-Fried to contact a potential witness against her, the general counsel of an FTX affiliate, and was necessary to prevent witness tampering and other obstruction of justice.
But in a letter to US District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan, lawyers for Bankman-Fried said prosecutors tossed “overbroad” bail conditions without disclosing that the two sides had been discussing bail since last week.
Bankman-Fried’s attorneys wrote, “Rather than wait for any response from the defense, the government halted the process by filing this letter at 6:00 p.m. Friday.” “The government clearly believes that a one-sided presentation – to cast our client in the worst possible light – is the best way to achieve results.”
Bankman-Fried’s attorneys also stated that their client’s attempts to contact General Counsel and John Ray, who was installed as chief executive officer of FTX during the bankruptcy, were attempts to offer “assistance” and not to interfere.
A spokesman for US Attorney Damien Williams in Manhattan declined to comment.
Bankman-Fried’s attorneys proposed that their client have access to some associates, including her therapist, but not be allowed to speak with Carolyn Allison and Zixiao “Gary” Wang, who have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with prosecutors. Huh.
He added that the signal ban is not necessary because Bankman-Fried is not using the auto-delete feature, and that his concerns may be “unfounded”.
The lawyers also asked for the bail condition barring Bankman-Fried from accessing FTX, Alameda or crypto assets to be lifted, saying there is “no evidence” he was responsible for the alleged unauthorized transactions in the past.
In an order Saturday, Kaplan gave prosecutors until Monday to address Bankman-Fried’s concerns.
“The court expects all lawyers to desist from slanderous characterization of the actions and motives of their opponents,” the judge said.
Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Andrea Ricci
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