SBF denies witness tampering in effort to avoid jail

Lawyers for Sam Bankman-Fried have denied that he attempted to intimidate witnesses in his criminal trial by talking to New York Times reporters and argued there is no reason to jail him.

In an Aug. 1 letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers claimed the prosecution’s attempt to revoke his bail and have him detained are “extremely thin” and heavily rely on assumptions and innuendo.

They added Bankman-Fried’s contact with a New York Times reporter was not an attempt to intimidate former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison or taint the jury pool and it was not enough to justify his detainment ahead of the trial. 

Bankman-Fried’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,” the lawyers argued.

On July 28, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) sought to revoke Bankman-Fried’s bail alleging his move to share Ellison’s diary with The New York Times was an attempt to harass and intimidate her. Ellison is expected to testify against SBF in his criminal trial which is scheduled to take place in October this year. 

Bankman-Fried’s lawyers instead suggested that it was the government who shared Ellison’s diary with the New York Times saying it was implausible the government had nothing 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.

This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.