{"id":1833457,"date":"2023-02-03T06:05:41","date_gmt":"2023-02-03T11:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1833457"},"modified":"2023-02-03T06:07:48","modified_gmt":"2023-02-03T11:07:48","slug":"judge-bars-sam-bankman-fried-from-contacting-ftx-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/judge-bars-sam-bankman-fried-from-contacting-ftx-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Bars Sam Bankman-Fried From Contacting FTX Employees"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fjudge-bars-sam-bankman-fried-from-contacting-ftx-employees%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1833457&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47-->\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Sam-Bankman-Fried-1200x800-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\"   style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p>On February 1, a New York judge granted permission to the Department of Justice to block <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-sam-bankman-fried\">Sam Bankman, Fried<\/a> Contacting former and current employees of the failed cryptocurrency exchange is possible. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-ftx\">FTX<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan also ruled that the block applies to\u00a0current and former employees of FTX\u2019s sister hedge fund, Alameda\u00a0Research.<\/p>\n<p>The judge\u2019s decision came after\u00a0federal prosecutors filed a letter (<a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.nysd.590940\/gov.uscourts.nysd.590940.50.0.pdf\">PDF<\/a>) with the court on Friday asking for\u00a0Bankman-Fried\u2019s bail conditions to be updated, citing concerns over possible\u00a0witness tampering.<\/p>\n<p>In the court filing,\u00a0Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, asked that the former FTX founder not be allowed to communicate with any current or former employees unless in\u00a0the presence of counsel, and that he also be banned from\u00a0encrypted messaging platforms like Signal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe imposition of these new conditions is justified in light of the nature of the case, as well as the defendant\u2019s recent attempts to contact prospective witnesses,\u201d\u00a0Williams wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors, in their letter to the court, claimed that\u00a0Bankman-Fried had on Jan. 14 contacted the general counsel of the FTX U.S. affiliate, referred to in court papers as \u201cWitness-1\u201d via\u00a0Signal, as well as by email.<\/p>\n<h2>Lawyers allege bankman-fried called FTX employee<\/h2>\n<p>According to prosecutors, his message read: \u201cI would really love to reconnect and see if there\u2019s a way for us to have a constructive relationship, use each other as resources when possible, or at least vet things with each other.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors claimed that the former CEO had also\u00a0contacted other current and former FTX employees and that hIs message to \u201cWitness-1\u201d is \u201csuggestive of an effort to influence\u201d them.<\/p>\n<p>Kaplan, in a seven-page decision (<a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.nysd.590940\/gov.uscourts.nysd.590940.58.0.pdf\">PDF<\/a>On Wednesday, he wrote that the message \u201cappears to have been an effort to have both the defendant and\u00a0Witness-1 sing out of the same hymn book.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSubject to hearing counsel\u2019s argument, the message in its entirety seems to be an invitation for\u00a0Witness-1 to align his views and recollections with the defendant\u2019s version of events and thus make their relationship \u2018constructive,&#8217;\u201d Kaplan spoke.<\/p>\n<p>Lawyers for\u00a0Bankman-Fried argued that their client needed to\u00a0communicate with some former employees, including his therapist, and objected to the ban on contact and use of\u00a0encrypted or ephemeral messaging platforms, CoinDesk <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/policy\/2023\/02\/01\/judge-bans-sam-bankman-fried-from-contacting-ftx-employees-and-using-signal\/\">reported.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cRequiring Mr. Bankman-Fried to include counsel in every communication with a former or current FTX employee would place an unnecessary strain on his resources and prejudice his ability to defend this case,\u201d his attorney\u00a0Mark Cohen told the court. \u201cMany of these individuals are Mr. Bankman-Fried\u2019s friends. Imposing a blanket restriction on his contact with them would remove an important source of personal support.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, Kaplan in his decision noted that while lawyers for\u00a0Bankman-Fried \u201cseek to have the Court interpret that message in a benign way, that does not appear, at least on a preliminary basis, to be a persuasive reading.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>New Hearing Dates Set<\/h2>\n<p>Under the terms of the new bail conditions,\u00a0Bankman-Fried will be allowed to contact\u00a0immediate family members.<\/p>\n<p>Bankman-Fried declined comment from a spokesperson.<\/p>\n<p>FTX, which was founded in 2019, filed for bankruptcy protection on Nov. 11 following a spectacular collapse after it emerged that\u00a0Alameda had been using FTX customer assets to keep itself propped up.<\/p>\n<p>Bankman-Fried was subsequently arrested on Dec. 17 in the Bahamas, where the company was headquartered, and he was extradited to the United States, where he was released on a $250 million bail and\u00a0placed\u00a0under house arrest at the California home of his parents.<\/p>\n<p>He pleaded not guilty in January to fraud, conspiracy and violations of campaign finance laws as well as money laundering.<\/p>\n<p>According to Kaplan\u2019s decision, the new amendments to\u00a0Bankman-Fried\u2019s bail conditions will stay in place until Feb. 7, when a hearing is scheduled.<\/p>\n<p>That hearing will also consider a\u00a0request by Bankman-Fried\u2019s lawyers to allow him to access and transfer cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n<p><em>This report was contributed by Reuters<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On February 1, a New York judge granted permission to the Department of Justice to block Sam Bankman, Fried Contacting former and current employees of the failed cryptocurrency exchange is possible. FTX. U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan also ruled that the block applies to\u00a0current and former employees of FTX\u2019s sister hedge fund, Alameda\u00a0Research. The &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1833460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[7176,9657,17460,5183,7334,5387,6912],"class_list":["post-1833457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report","tag-bankman-fried","tag-bars","tag-contacting","tag-employees","tag-ftx","tag-judge","tag-sam"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1833457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1833457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1833457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1833460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1833457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1833457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1833457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}