Disgraced Crypto King Sam Bankman-Fried Back In Custody After Judge Revokes Bail Over ‘Witness Tampering’
The co-founder of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX is back in custody pending trial, after a judge ruled that Sam Bankman-Fried was “tampering with witnesses.”
“And the judge finding today that there was probable cause to believe that Bankman-Fried attempted to tamper with witnesses at least twice, and that’s the basis, why the judge revoked his bail and has remanded him into custody,” reported CNN’s Kara Scanell.
She continued:
He is expected to go to trial on October 2nd, so we’re about seven weeks out from this trial, but the judge revoking bail. And prosecutors had asked for this because one of the issues, the tipping point, seemed to be that Bankman-Fried spoke to The New York Times about a person in this case. This was Caroline Ellison. She was a top executive at FTX and its sister hedge fund. And he had talked to The Times about her; prosecutors saying that was an attempt to tamper with witnesses, and potentially intimidate her from testifying at trial. She has pleaded guilty to numerous serious crimes and is going to be one of the government’s star witnesses.
The Associated Press reported that Bankman-Fried allegedly gave Ellison’s “private writings” to The Times in order to “sully her reputation.” Ellison is the ex-CEO of Alameda Research, a cryptocurrency trading hedge fund owned by Bankman-Fried.
According to CNN, Bankman-Fried had been out on $250 million bond and staying at his parents’ home in California. Attorneys had asked that their client remain free while they appealed the ruling, but the judge denied the request, saying “he didn’t know what kind of mischief” Bankman-Fried “could get into during that time.”
Bankman-Fried was extradited from his home in the Bahamas in December for allegedly defrauding investors and illegally diverting cryptocurrency worth millions of dollars. Ellison pleaded guilty to charges against her in December and faces 110 years in prison. She agreed to testify against Bankman-Fried and could receive a more lenient sentence.
Watch the clip above via CNN.
