By Luke Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sam Bankman Fried has appealed the decision to imprison him before his Oct. 3 trial over the collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange FTX, arguing that he was being punished for exercising his First Amendment right to free speech.
On August 11, US District Judge Louis Kaplan canceled bail for the 31-year-old former billionaire, after finding probable cause to believe he had tampered with witnesses.
This came after he shared with a New York Times reporter personal writings belonging to his former colleague and romantic partner, Caroline Ellison, before FTX collapsed in November 2022.
Ellison is one of three former members of Bankman Fried’s inner circle who are expected to testify against him after he pleads guilty to the fraud.
In a motion for Bankman-Fried’s release from prison filed late Friday night with the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals, his attorneys wrote that their client shared Ellison’s writings with the journalist to defend his reputation, not to intimidate her.
“It is unclear how a cooperating witness who promised to testify against the defendant could have been seriously threatened by having his statement published in a reputable newspaper,” Bankman-Fred’s lawyers wrote.
Prosecutors have accused Bankman Fried of stealing billions of dollars in client funds to offset losses at Alameda Research, a cryptocurrency-focused hedge fund he also owns, where Ellison was CEO.
He has pleaded not guilty.
His lawyers said his confinement at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, which has long been criticized for its conditions, interfered with his constitutional right to prepare for trial.
At a court hearing on Aug. 22, Bankman Fried’s attorneys objected to the prison’s failure to provide him with Adderall for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or to provide him with a vegan diet, which left him subsisting on bread, water and peanut butter.
His lawyers also said the prison did not give Bankman-Fried enough computer time to review the evidence and prepare his defense.
In her writing, Ellison described feeling “unhappy and exhausted” with her job and “hurt/rejected” by her breakup with Bankman Fried.
Prosecutors said Bankman-Fred shared Ellison’s writing to harass her and discourage others from testifying if they thought it would make them look bad in the press.
(Reporting by Luke Cohen in New York; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Nick Zieminski)
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