On Friday, a US judge said that he was still unsatisfied with the proposal for imposing tighter restrictions on the communications of Sam Bankman-Fried, the indicted co-founder of the FTX crypto exchange.
He was referring to the communications of the disgraced crypto founder with the outside world, while he is awaiting trial on bail.
The concerns
US District Judge Lewis Kaplan will oversee Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial and he believes that the former billionaire is testing the limits of his bail package worth $250 million.
The fraud trial is scheduled to begin on October 2nd and the co-founder of FTX is trying to stay out of jail until then.
The 31-year old former billionaire has been charged with stealing FTX’s customer funds worth billions of dollars for plugging losses at his trading desk, Alameda Research, and making illegal political donations worth tens of millions of dollars for buying influence in Washington, D.C.
The behavior
Prosecutors had become concerned with the behavior of Sam Bankman-Fried while he is out on bail. They stated that he had tried to reach out to John Ray, the new chief executive of FTX.
They also said that he had also tried to contact an in-house lawyer for the purpose of tampering witnesses.
According to lawyers for the defense, Bankman-Fried had not intended to interfere and was simply offering assistance.
More details
Defense lawyers and prosecutors had proposed last Friday that Bankman-Fried be allowed to have a flip phone without any internet capability as well as a basic laptop that has limited features.
However, he is not permitted to use any other electronic communication devices. But, Kaplan said in the hearing on Friday that SBF is quite ‘inventive’.
Therefore, he could come up with a way of circumventing the restrictions and communicating electronically with others.
A lawyer for Sam Bankman-Fried, Christian Everdell said that they would come up with a new proposal with the prosecutors for addressing the concerns of the judge.
Bankman-Fried had previously been facing eight charges, but new conspiracy and fraud charges were added by prosecutors last month. Therefore, he is now facing a total of 12 charges.