The decide’s feedback got here simply earlier than he denied Bankman-Fried’s request to be launched from jail to arrange for trial.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the indicted founding father of now-bankrupt cryptocurrency trade FTX, could face a “very lengthy sentence” if convicted at his fraud trial beginning subsequent week, the decide overseeing the case mentioned on Thursday.
United States District Decide Lewis Kaplan’s feedback got here simply earlier than he denied the 31-year-old former billionaire’s request to be launched from jail quickly through the trial to raised assist his legal professionals mount his protection case. Kaplan mentioned Bankman-Fried was a flight threat.
“Your consumer within the occasion of conviction may very well be taking a look at a really lengthy sentence,” Kaplan mentioned in a listening to in Manhattan federal courtroom. “If issues start to look bleak … possibly the time would come when he would search to flee.”
Mark Cohen, Bankman-Fried’s lawyer, mentioned there was “nothing within the document” to counsel that his consumer would attempt to flee. He mentioned Bankman-Fried had voluntarily consented to extradition from the Bahamas – the place FTX was primarily based – to the US after his December 2022 arrest.
Bankman-Fried has pleaded not responsible to seven counts of fraud and conspiracy stemming from FTX’s collapse in November 2022. He faces a statutory most of 110 years in jail, although any sentence can be decided by Kaplan primarily based on a variety of things and he would doubtless get far much less.
His legal professionals requested Kaplan for momentary launch earlier this week, arguing they might not communicate with him after every trial day to arrange for the subsequent day’s witnesses and testimony, which they might not do if he had been taken again to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn on the finish of every trial day.
Kaplan mentioned on Thursday he was sympathetic to the protection’s considerations and would prepare for Bankman-Fried to reach at courtroom at 7am on most trial days to talk along with his legal professionals for a number of hours earlier than testimony begins.
Prosecutors say Bankman-Fried stole billions of {dollars} in FTX buyer deposits to plug losses at Alameda Analysis, a crypto-focused hedge fund he managed.
They opposed Bankman-Fried’s request for momentary launch. On Thursday, prosecutor Danielle Kudla instructed Kaplan that Bankman-Fried had “ample alternative to arrange for trial” through the seven and a half months he was free on bail at his house in Palo Alto, California.
Kaplan jailed him on August 11 after discovering he doubtless tampered with witnesses not less than twice – together with by sharing former Alameda chief government officer Caroline Ellison’s personal writings with a New York Occasions reporter.
Ellison, additionally Bankman-Fried’s former romantic accomplice, is one in every of three former members of his inside circle who’ve pleaded responsible to fraud and are set to testify in opposition to him. Former FTX executives Gary Wang and Nishad Singh have additionally agreed to testify.
Kaplan mentioned on Thursday that prosecutors had requested that he grant two extra witnesses immunity from being charged with crimes in trade for his or her testimony. He didn’t determine these witnesses.
The trial begins on October 3 and will last as long as six weeks.
