The saga of Sam Bankman Fried’s pretrial release continues.
The disgraced founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX has been detained at Brooklyn’s notorious Metropolitan Detention Center since August, with Bankman-Fried’s lawyers arguing that he lacks the resources to prepare a defense.
While different judges have rejected several petitions to free Bankman-Fried ahead of the Oct. 3 trial, his attorneys are continuing to push for the defendant’s release, including in a new court filing Monday.
In the latest attempt, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers argue they are running out of time as the trial date approaches.
“We find that it will be extremely difficult to adequately prepare for trial under current access restrictions,” they wrote.
ten years of trial
Since FTX’s collapse in November, hopes of Bankman-Fried’s innocence have faded. He was arrested at his penthouse in the Bahamas in December and was quickly extradited to the United States, where he faces a slew of charges related to FTX’s collapse, including wire fraud and money laundering.
As prosecutors piled on new charges and members of Bankman-Fried’s inner circle turned against him, Bankman-Fried worked with his attorneys to build a home at his parents’ home in Palo Alto, Calif. He was defended at home, where he was granted house arrest.
Bankman-Fried’s actions, however, began to jeopardize that small sliver of freedom. Prosecutors characterized his access to potential witnesses in the upcoming trial as witness tampering and said he violated pretrial protocols by using a VPN to watch football games.Then, after he leaked a private diary to former Alameda CEO and his ex-girlfriend Carolyn Ellison New York Timesthe judge remanded him to MDC in Brooklyn.
Now, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers argue that the defendant did not have adequate equipment and a legal team while in custody, a major obstacle ahead of his trial, which will include thousands of pages of electronic evidence, ranging from emails to Slack archives.
Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is presiding over the case in the Southern District of New York, said: reject In mid-September, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit also filed a petition to allow his pretrial release. Both said Bankman-Fried could continue to ask for pretrial release.
Discover challenges
For complex white-collar trials, defendants often spend months preparing with their legal teams due to the volume of electronic discovery generated in the case. With limited physical capabilities and limited visitation capabilities, facilities like the Brooklyn MDC present challenges for defendants, especially expedited trials like Bankman-Fried’s.
Defense attorneys and public defenders argued wealth Bankman-Fried’s case is part of a long-standing problem at pretrial detention centers where inmates are denied access to attorneys and evidentiary materials.Although prosecutors have been working to improve conditions, including providing Bankman Fried with air-gapped access laptop and a visit to the court, which his lawyers argued was not enough.
In documents filed Monday, Bankman-Fried’s attorneys argued that the temporary release was necessary given the scale of the government’s case, which they said includes more than 50 potential witnesses, thousands of pages of materials and more than 1,300 items. exhibit.
They wrote that they did not know which witnesses prosecutors would call or what exhibits they planned to reduce, meaning it would be necessary for the defense team to consult with Bankman-Fried to prepare for the off-site the following day. Witness and exhibit preparation. court.
“We cannot do this unless he is temporarily released,” they argued, adding that otherwise they would only have access to him each morning before the trial begins.
Bankman-Fried’s attorneys asked that he be released from October 2 until his trial and that he be allowed to live in temporary housing in New York City. He will be accompanied by private security and will not be able to use any electronic devices or talk to anyone other than his defense team, parents and brother.
Prosecutors and Judge Kaplan have yet to respond.
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