Founder of FTX heads to court for bail hearing
NEW YORK — FTX founder Sam Bankman-fried will head to a New York courtroom Thursday to face a federal judge who said his effort to contact a likely trial witness against him seemed designed so they would “sing out of the same hymn book.”
On Tuesday, Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected Bankman’s-fried’s lawyers’ request that oral arguments about his bail be canceled because lawyers on both sides have settled their differences on necessary changes to his bail package in order to prevent inappropriate contact with witnesses or damaging encrypted social media communications.
The arguments, set for Thursday morning, will proceed as scheduled, the judge ruled as he declined to approve new bail conditions that defense lawyers said prosecutors had agreed with, including the exemption of some individuals from a no-contact list and permission for Bankman-fried to place audio and video calls.
The bail hearing was scheduled after prosecutors said Bankman-fried sent an encrypted message over the Signal texting app Jan. 15 to the general counsel of FTX US.
Kaplan said the question of whether further measures should be taken to restrict Bankman-fried’s actions was also raised by allegations that he directed employees in the past to use applications whose communications could be erased.
Bankman-fried, 30, has been confined with electronic monitoring to his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California, since his December arrest on charges that he cheated investors and looted customer deposits on his cryptocurrency trading platform, in part to finance political donations and make trades at Alameda Research. He has pleaded not guilty. A trial has been set for October.