Sam Bankman-Fried’s Lawyer Prepares New Bail Proposal After Breaching Conditions Using VPNs and Encryption

2023-4-5 20:34

Sam Bankman-Fried’s lawyers are preparing a new bail package after the court frowned upon a breach of bail conditions. The troubled founder was revealed to have reached out to former employees using encrypted-messaging applications. However, the presiding judge argued that the bail conditions for SBF were too lenient, offering avenues to bypass limitations.

Ahead of his widely anticipated fraud trial in October, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has been accused of “testing the limits” of his bail conditions as his legal team proposes a new package.

Christian Everdell, Sam Bankman-Fried’s lawyer, disclosed that he will be sending a revised bail package to presiding judge Lewis Kaplan of the Southern District of New York. The proposed package is coming after SBF riled Judge Kaplan by contacting former FTX employees using virtual private networks in violation of his bail conditions.

Specifically, SBF was found to have reached out to FTX’s new CEO John Ray on the encrypted messaging app Signal which prosecutors say could be an attempt to confer with witnesses. However, Everdell claimed that SBF was not trying to meddle in the case but was only making a valiant attempt at helping out.

Going forward, Everdell disclosed that he will be collaborating with the prosecution to work out improved bail conditions that will be acceptable to all parties in the matter. Everdell’s comments were contained in a letter to the court after Judge Kaplan threatened to revoke the bail conditions in the face of further breaches.

“We believe we are close to a resolution and anticipate being able to present the court with a proposed order outlining these conditions by next week,” read Everdell’s letter.

Under present bail conditions, Sam Bankman-Fried remains under house arrest at his parent’s house with a monitoring device around his ankle. New bail conditions could see him have access to a mobile device and a personal computer without access to complex functionalities.

There are concerns that SBF could bypass the conditions to establish contact with his former employees with Kaplan describing the conditions as lenient.

An avalanche of charges

SBF stands accused of stealing billions of FTX’s customer funds for personal use and to prop up Alameda Research, the trading arm of his empire. Prosecutors included the charge of making illegal political donations to curry favor and for violating all rules of corporate governance.

New conspiracy charges were added to the laundry list of charges against SBF to bring the total list to 12. If found guilty of all counts, SBF could face 115 years in federal prison but the embattled founder continues to claim his innocence in the face of a litany of evidence.

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