Sam Bankman-Fried arrested as bail is revoked

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of FTX, has had his bail revoked and will now be held in prison, Reuters said on Aug. 11.

That report indicates that U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan revoked Bankman-Fried’s bail following earlier concerns about witness tampering.

Judge Kaplan noted during the latest hearing that Bankman-Fried had provided documents regarding former associate Caroline Ellison to New York Times reporters during an in-person meeting at his parents’ home. The judge reasoned that Bankman-Fried knew that “he was least likely to be caught” by conducting the meeting in this way and asserted that the accused was “was covering his tracks.”

Separate reports from The New York Times quote Kaplan as stating that Bankman-Fried had “gone up to the line over and over again,” thus necessitating the bail revocation. Bankman-Fried attempted to contact other relevant parties over the course of this year.

Federal prosecutors argued for Bankman-Fried’s bail to be revoked around July 26. They insisted that Bankman-Fried’s actions could sway witnesses if he were to remain on bail and asserted that an existing gag order provided insufficient restrictions.

SBF arrested, but next steps unclear

Reuters reported that Bankman-Fried was arrested at the end of the latest hearing. Both of Bankman-Fried’s parents were present in the courtroom audience.

The location at which Bankman-Fried will be held has not been confirmed. However, according to Reuters, prosecutor Danielle Sassoon said that Bankman-Fried should be held at the medium-security Putnam County Correctional Facility. This will provide him with an online laptop so that he can review evidence prior to his trial.

Despite Sassoon’s apparent leniency in choosing a holding location, the New York Times portrays Sassoon as taking a harsh position on Bankman-Fried’s actions. There, she is quoted as stating that “no set of release conditions” can ensure the community’s safety and asserting that the accused is “intent on exploiting the conditions of release.”

Though the entirety of the latest hearing has not been made public, a minute entry in Bankman-Fried’s case docket confirms that Bankman-Fried’s bond has been revoked and that the “defendant [was] ordered remanded” during the hearing.

That entry also states that Bankman-Fried’s legal team moved to delay the court’s ruling on a pending appeal, but that this request was denied by the court. Reports suggest that his legal team otherwise intends to contest the result.

Bankman-Fried’s imprisonment begins less than two months before his October trial. Until now, apart from a brief incarceration in The Bahamas, Bankman-Fried has mainly been on bail and under house arrest at his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California.

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