- Sam Bankman-Fried says preventing him from talking to the press and revoking bail are violations of his rights.
- The U.S. Prosecutors have asked to revoke his bail after SBF leaked diary entries of Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison to the New York Times.
- The prosecutors believe that Bankman-Fried is trying to scare Ellison and prevent her from appearing as a witness in the case.
The former CEO of the infamous FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, is once again in the news, this time for his latest statement. The fallen tech entrepreneur has claimed that his free-speech rights are being violated by restrictions on speaking to the media and revoking his bond.
This concern from Bankman-Fried’s team follows the U.S. prosecutor’s request to revoke his 250 million bond. The request to revoke the bail was the result of a New York Times article, where the story featured details of Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison’s personal diary. The prosecutors claimed that the diary was leaked to the press and was used as a scare tactic to prevent Ellison from appearing as a witness in the case.
However, Bankman-Fried’s legal team denied this allegation, stating, “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.”
The contents of Ellison’s diary were a source of much speculation when it was first published in the New York Times last month. The Google Docs file included intimate details about Ellison’s relationship with Bankman-Fried and her innermost turmoil regarding her job and her role in the Alameda.
It was evident from the materials made public that Ellison and Bankman-Fried were involved in an on-again-off-again romantic relationship which put a strain on Ellison’s role as the CEO of Alameda. In one of the documents, she wrote her struggles with being in the leadership position, stating, “Running Alameda doesn’t feel like something I’m that comparatively advantaged at or well suited to do.”
Ellison pleaded guilty to the fraud charges in December of 2022 and agreed to cooperate with the investigation into FTX’s financial catastrophe. She is expected to be one of the witnesses that will be called during the trial.
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