The founder of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, also known as SBF in the crypto space, has denied allegations of tampering with witnesses as per a new turn of events. The former crypto billionaire seeks to escape jail time. The lawyers representing the crypto entrepreneur said that SBF did not talk to reporters at the New York Times to influence or intimidate witnesses
The lawyers representing FTX founder and former CEO stated in an August 1 letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan that the allegations made by prosecutors claiming that SBF tampered with witnesses are based heavily on assumptions and innuendo. The prosecutors seek to have SBF’s bail revoked, but the lawyers representing SBF stated that attempts are “extremely thin.”
Bankman-Fried’s lawyers said that the FTX founder’s contact with a New York Times reporter cannot be seen as an attempt to intimidate the former CEO of Alameda Research, Caroline Ellison, or taint the jury pool, adding that this allegation is not enough for his detention ahead of the trial
SBF’s contact with reporters 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,” noted the lawyers.
Interestingly, the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) sought to revoke Bankman-Fried’s bail because he made the alleged move to leak the private papers of Ellison, who was once his business ally and romantic partner, to a New York Times journalist. This was seen as an attempt to intimidate the former Alameda Research CEO, who is supposed to testify against the FTX founder in October this year
On the other hand, the lawyers stated that it was the government that had leaked the private papers to the reporters, adding that it was implausible that the government had anything to do with the article.
“The language of the story itself, which discusses when the Government will begin preparing its trial witnesses and describes documents that were not provided to the reporter by Mr. Bankman-Fried, strongly indicates it was a source,” the lawyers said.
As reported earlier by Bitnation, the FTX crypto exchange is currently in talks about restarting the crypto trading platform to repay the creditors. The exchange filed a lawsuit on July 20 and named SBF, Zixiao “Gary” Wang, Caroline Ellison, and Nishad Singh as defendants
