Judge Lewis Kaplan Rejects Sam Bankman-Fried's Pre-Trial Release Plea – Here's the Latest
SDNY Judge Lewis Kaplan has rejected a plea from Sam Bankman-Fried's legal team to release the FTX founder before his upcoming trial to better prepare for the legal proceedings.
The decision was grounded in several key arguments presented by Judge Kaplan in a three-page memo on Tuesday pertaining to the multi-faceted fraud case.
For one, Bankman-Fried has already been granted a substantial amount of time to review case materials electronically since being indicted on December 9, 2022.
Defendants had earlier claimed that the founder wasn’t being granted ample time or internet access to review case materials during his last month in prison, as promised. According to the DOJ, Bankman-Fried is supposed to be given several hours per day to review case materials through an air-gapped, internet-connected laptop.
“He faced no such impediments during the roughly 7-½ months between his presentment to this court and the revocation of his bail,” wrote the judge.
Bankman-Fried's bail was revoked in August due to allegations of witness tampering. Accusations of leaking the diary of Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of FTX sister firm Alameda Research and Bankman-Fried's former girlfriend, to the New York Times.
As a result, Bankman-Fried, who faces multiple charges including wire fraud, lender fraud, and securities fraud, exchanged his parents' home in Palo Alto for detention at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
Judge Kaplan added that Bankman-Fried’s personal entitlement to review all case discovery materials, generate unspecified work product, and more, was flawed. “Defendants is represented by a substantial team of extremely able retained lawyers,” he wrote, noting that Bankman-Fried plans to call at least seven expert
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