Sam-Bankman Fried Uses Free-Speech Card to His Defense on Fear of Jail
Disgraced FTX founder Sam-Bankman Fried that revoking his $250 million bond and jailing him for his speech to the New York Times last month would be a violation of his free-speech rights.
Last week, US prosecutors requested a judge to revoke Sam Bankman-Fried’s $250 million bond following the publication of a New York Times story. The article quoted excerpts from a diary written by Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, who has pleaded guilty to fraud and is now cooperating with prosecutors.
Prosecutors claimed that Sam Bankman-Fried provided the diary entries to the New York Times and spoke with the reporter who wrote the article. They accused him of trying to intimidate Ellison, who might be a witness in his trial and influence the potential jurors.
However, SBF’s lawyer Mark Cohen said that detaining his client because he talked to a reporter raises “serious” First Amendment issues. He added:
“Mr. Bankman-Fried’s contact with the New York Times reporter was not an attempt to intimidate Ms. Ellison or taint the jury pool. It was a proper exercise of his rights to make fair comment on an article already in progress, for which the reporter already had alternate sources.
As the government concedes, criminal defendants have a right to talk to the press about their case to influence their public image and try to protect their reputation, as long as the communications are not calculated to pervert the course of justice”.
Sam Bankman-Fried And Court Rulings
Following the collapse of FTX last November, 31-year-old Sam Bankman-Fried is facing charges of conspiracy and fraud. The charges relate to the alleged misuse of billions of dollars of customers’ funds before the FTX crypto empire collapsed. He has been under house arrest at his parent’s home in California.
Additionally, SBF has been facing multiple allegations in addition to conspiracy and fraud. The disgraced FTX founder recently got some partial relief after the court cleared him of illicit campaign contributions.
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