Key takeaways:
- Sam Bankman-Fried was granted a temporary release from prison, and he is expected to stay there until the start of his trial on October 3.
- To get around a potentially unstable internet connection, SBF’s attorneys may give him data to evaluate on a hard drive.
Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the former CEO of FTX, was granted a temporary release from prison, and he is expected to stay there until the start of his trial on October 3.
On September 12, District Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected SBF’s argument that the lack of adequate internet access in jail made it difficult for him to prepare for his trial, concluding that this was insufficient justification for releasing him. Kaplan explained:
“The defendant had not made any detailed showing as to specific material that he claims he has been unable to access personally and the reasons why any such personal inability actually would impede his defense,”
Kaplan said that, in order to get around a potentially unstable internet connection, SBF’s attorneys may give him data to evaluate on a hard drive.
“There has been no suggestion that counsel is incapable of running any searches across the Relativity or AWS databases that defendant may desire and then providing him with the results.”
SBF’s legal team earlier expressed dissatisfaction with the prison’s internet connection in a letter dated September 8; they claimed they frequently had to wait up to 10 minutes for a website homepage to load.
SBF had the opportunity to ask for a trial date postponement on October 3, but no request was made, according to Kaplan.
The second trial for the former FTX CEO, which is scheduled to start on March 11, 2024, will feature 12 criminal counts spread across two different trials. SBF has entered a not-guilty plea to all charges.
The US DOJ has filed a court document in support of more thorough disclosures in SBF’s defense plan as his trial approaches. The document called into question SBF’s present defense position, which maintains that his attorneys at FTX approved of his alleged fraudulent behavior.
