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Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that SBF TO BE JAILED as US judge Bail RevokedSBF TO BE JAILED as US judge Bail Revoked.
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was ordered to jail by the judge in his case in a court hearing on Friday.
The government was successful in arguing for its request to detain Bankman-Fried, citing claims he was tampering with witnesses by speaking with the press ahead of trial.
Judge Kaplan ruled Friday that Bankman-Fried’s decision to contact two key witnesses on two separate occasions led to, “an attempt at witness tampering.” He put aside issues concerning a First Amendment right to speak to the press and ruled with a focus on the intent behind Bankman-Fried’s actions constituted an intent to, “influence these people.”
Kaplan found there was sufficient evidence to suspect SBF of working to dissuade potential witnesses by sharing personal and intimate documents with the media, such as the ones written by Caroline Ellison.
Judge Lewis Kaplan, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, wasn’t convinced by these arguments.
SBF’s story of FTX’s collapse goes like this: A series of crashes in crypto prices cratered the value of Alameda’s assets. Caroline Ellison, having little risk management experience and feeling overwhelmed at her job, initially failed to hedge against the possibility of a crash, despite SBF’s suggestions that she do so.
By June 2022, according to SBF, Alameda had lost a fortune due to the downturn of the crypto market, its NAV crashing to about $14 billion. At that point, he threatened to fire Caroline, now the sole CEO of Alameda following Trabucco’s exit in early 2021, unless she hedged Alameda’s bets, and she complied.
Bankman-Fried’s defense team admitted he shared some diary pages with the Times, though his attorneys disputed that he was trying to tamper with a witness in doing so. The defense team also argued that jailing Bankman-Fried would make it more difficult to prepare for his trial.
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