Prosecutors accuse FTX's Bankman-Fried of witness tampering

By Shubham Kalia and Gokul Pisharody

(Reuters) – U.S. prosecutors have accused FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried of witness tampering and requested a federal choose to challenge an order that may bar the previous billionaire and different events from making public statements more likely to intrude with a good trial.

The prosecutors wrote to U.S. District Choose Lewis Kaplan on Thursday referencing a New York Occasions article titled “Contained in the Non-public Writings of Caroline Ellison, Star Witness within the FTX Case”.

The article reported excerpts from Ellison’s private Google (NASDAQ:) paperwork from earlier than the collapse of FTX through which she spoke about being “fairly sad and overwhelmed” together with her job and feeling “harm/rejected” from her breakup with Bankman-Fried.

Ellison led Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Analysis hedge fund and has pleaded responsible to defrauding traders and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. In December, Bankman-Fried mentioned he and Ellison had been in a relationship however gave no additional particulars.

Prosecutors mentioned it was obvious Bankman-Fried shared paperwork with the New York Occasions and that his legal professionals have since confirmed to the federal government that he met with one of many article’s authors in particular person and shared paperwork “that weren’t a part of the federal government’s discovery materials.”

Bankman-Fried’s spokesperson and legal professionals didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark. Neither New York Occasions nor Ellison’s legal professionals responded to Reuters’ requests for remark.

The prosecutors argued that by sharing these paperwork, Bankman-Fried was attempting to malign Ellison’s credibility, and that such conduct might chill witnesses from testifying and taint the jury pool.

“By selectively sharing sure personal paperwork with the New York Occasions, the defendant is trying to discredit a witness, solid Ellison in a poor gentle, and advance his protection via the press and outdoors the constraints of the courtroom and guidelines of proof: that Ellison was a jilted lover who perpetrated these crimes alone”, prosecutors wrote within the letter.

Earlier on Thursday, FTX Buying and selling sued founder Bankman-Fried and different former executives of the cryptocurrency trade, searching for to recoup greater than $1 billion they allegedly misappropriated earlier than FTX went bankrupt.