NEW YORK — FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was despatched to jail Friday to await trial after a bail listening to for the fallen cryptocurrency wiz left a choose satisfied that he had repeatedly tried to affect witnesses in opposition to him.

U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordered Bankman-Fried’s bail revoked after prosecutors mentioned he’d tried to harass a key witness in his fraud case final month when he confirmed a journalist her personal writings and in January when he reached out to the overall counsel for FTX with an encrypted communication.

His attorneys insisted he shouldn’t be jailed for attempting to guard his repute in opposition to a barrage of unfavorable information tales.

Kaplan mentioned he had concluded there was possible trigger to consider Bankman-Fried had tried to “tamper with witnesses at least twice” since his December arrest.

A protection lawyer mentioned an enchantment of the incarceration order could be filed and requested for a direct keep of the order.

The 31-year-old has been below home arrest at his mother and father’ dwelling in Palo Alto, California, since his December extradition from the Bahamas on costs that he defrauded traders in his companies and illegally diverted tens of millions of {dollars}’ price of cryptocurrency from prospects utilizing his FTX change.

Bankman-Fried’s $250 million bail package deal severely restricts his web and telephone utilization.

Two weeks in the past, prosecutors stunned Bankman-Fried’s attorneys by demanding his incarceration, saying he violated these guidelines by giving The New York Times the personal writings of Caroline Ellison, his former girlfriend and the ex-CEO of Alameda Research, a cryptocurrency buying and selling hedge fund that was one among his companies.

Prosecutors maintained he was attempting to sully her repute and affect potential jurors who could be summoned for his October trial.

Ellison pleaded responsible in December to prison costs carrying a possible penalty of 110 years in jail. She has agreed to testify in opposition to Bankman-Fried as a part of a deal that would result in a extra lenient sentence.

Bankman-Fried’s attorneys argued he most likely failed in a quest to defend his repute as a result of the article solid Ellison in a sympathetic gentle. They additionally mentioned prosecutors exaggerated the position Bankman-Fried had within the article.

They mentioned prosecutors had been attempting to get their shopper locked up by providing proof consisting of “innuendo, speculation, and scant facts.”

Since prosecutors made their detention request, Kaplan has imposed a gag order barring public feedback by individuals taking part within the trial, together with Bankman-Fried.

David McCraw, a lawyer for the Times, had written to the choose, noting the First Amendment implications of any blanket gag order, in addition to public curiosity in Ellison and her cryptocurrency buying and selling agency.

Ellison confessed to a central position in a scheme defrauding traders of billions of {dollars} that went undetected, McGraw mentioned.

“It is not surprising that the public wants to know more about who she is and what she did and that news organizations would seek to provide to the public timely, pertinent, and fairly reported information about her, as The Times did in its story,” McGraw mentioned.

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