Bankman-Fried Claims Jailing Him Would Violate Free-Speech Right
(Bloomberg) -- FTX co-founder Samuel Bankman-Fried claims that revoking his bond and jailing him for speaking with a newspaper reporter would violate his free-speech rights.
US prosecutors asked a judge last week to revoke Bankman-Fried's $250 million bond after the New York Times published a story that quoted excerpts from a diary written by Caroline Ellison — the former CEO of Alameda Research, FTX's hedge fund affiliate, and Bankman-Fried's former girlfriend. She has pleaded guilty to fraud and is cooperating with prosecutors.
After the New York Times article was published, prosecutors accused Bankman-Fried of providing the quoted diary entries to the paper and talking to the reporter who wrote the story. They claimed he was trying to intimidate Ellison, who may be called as a witness at his trial, and taint the jury pool.
In a letter Tuesday to US District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan, Bankman-Fried's lawyers pushed back.
“Mr. Bankman-Fried's contact with the New York Times reporter was not an attempt to intimidate Ms. Ellison or taint the jury pool. It was a proper exercise of his rights to make fair comment on an article already in progress, for which the reporter already had alternate sources,” Bankman-Fried's lawyer Mark Cohen wrote.
Detaining Bankman-Fried because he talked to a reporter raises “serious” First Amendment issues, Cohen said.
“As the government concedes, criminal defendants have a right to talk to the press about their case to influence their public image and try to protect their reputation, as long as the communications are not calculated to pervert the course of justice,” Cohen wrote.
Bankman-Fried, 31, was charged in December with crimes including conspiracy and wire fraud for allegedly misusing billions of dollars of customers' funds before the spectacular implosion of the FTX crypto empire.
He has pleaded not guilty.
Bankman-Fried has been living under house arrest at his parent's home in California. Visitors to the house must hand in their electronic devices to a security guard at the front door, and his internet usage is heavily monitored. He was banned from using encrypted messaging apps and contacting witnesses.
The case is US v. Bankman-Fried, 22-cr-673, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.
-
Signature Play: The Classic Cocktail Is Dead. Or Is It?
Classic cocktails are disappearing from India's cocktail menus. But they're still being ordered, taught to bartenders and borrowed from. So, who's really having the last drink?
-
A New Samvat Wishlist: Inclusive Prosperity And Human Development
India has strengthened its economic foundations through infrastructure, digital access and enterprise. Its next growth chapter must deepen productivity, create better livelihoods and widen participation in prosperity.
-
Love, Sex Aur Dhokha: The Audacious Plot To Spy On Jensen Huang
A Taipei dinner, a Singapore chip buyer and a suspected Chinese asset: inside the alleged spy operation that got close to NVIDIA's Jensen Huang.
-
Ten Things I Learnt This Samvat
Patience can be a trap. Cheap stocks can stay cheap. Leverage can wipe you out. What did Samvat 2082 teach us? Niraj Shah writes on 10 lessons from the year gone by.
-
Talking Points This Week: Tech Nerves, FII Buying, And A Faraway Banking Shock
The global markets are not shining this Diwali. The exception in the large markets is, India.
-
Midterm Rally Lasted A Day. The Hard Reality Of A Divided US May Last Two Years | Opinion
Between a contested AI boom, a debt ceiling that arrives in 2027 and a president with every incentive to act alone, the next two years may prove more volatile than the first day's rally suggests.
-
Blue Wave Will Derail the AI Trade but Won't Dismantle the AI Era | Unhedged Position
The Democrats' sweep of the US Congress will see politics collide with economic forces both over the long and short term.
-
It's Time To Take The GST Council's Bet On Trust Global
Payment records can prove India's services exports, and clear, proportionate rules can bring foreign digital sellers into the tax net.
-
Opinion | India at 38: From Innovation Overperformer to Innovation Powerhouse
India now has 453 VC-backed deep science startups, 18 of them late-stage, after 117 percent growth since 2020. Laurus Labs, at USD 9.3 billion, is the most valuable deep science company in any middle-income economy outside China.
