Topline
Former crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried will await his October trial in jail rather than at his parent’s multimillion-dollar home in Palo Alto for allegedly tampering with witnesses, a federal judge ruled Friday, as Bankman-Fried’s legal saga grows messier.
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrives in Manhattan for a Friday court apeparance.
Key Facts
Bankman-Fried violated his bail conditions by feeding information to the New York Times about his ex-girlfriend and former top underling Caroline Ellison, determined federal judge Lewis A. Kaplan, according to reporters present at the courtroom.
Ellison, who was CEO of Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund Alameda Research, is expected to testify against Bankman-Fried in his trial for overseeing an extensive web of fraud and corruption at Alameda and his FTX crypto exchange.
Authorities escorted Bankman-Fried out of the courtroom Friday in handcuffs after Kaplan denied his legal team’s appeal, per Inner City Press.
Key Background
Once worth as much as $26.5 billion amid the crypto boom, Bankman-Fried fell from grace swiftly last fall after Coindesk revealed suspicious co-mingling of funds at Alameda and FTX, leading to the firms’ bankruptcies and Bankman-Fried’s arrest in a matter of weeks. The court will try Bankman-Fried on seven charges in October centered directly on securities and wire fraud at his businesses, tabling counts related to allegations of illegal political donations domestically and bribery in China.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2023/08/11/judge-orders-sam-bankman-fried-back-to-jail-for-violating-bail-conditions/