As per the proposed conditions, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried will get a new phone with no internet capability limited to voice calls and text messages.
On Monday, March 27, lawyers of FTX’s disgraced founder Sam Bankman-Fried said that they have reached an agreement with US prosecutors over the new bail conditions. This development comes as the judge raised the prospect of sending SBF to jail pending trial.
The newly proposed conditions have been submitted for approval to District Judge Lewis Kaplan of the Southern District of New York. These conditions state that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried will get a new phone with no internet capability limited to voice calls and text messages. Besides, he shall also get a laptop with limited functionality that will allow him access only to the approved websites.
Furthermore, the laptop will have monitoring software to track user activity. Also, SBF won’t get any administrative access to prevent any sort of tampering with restrictions.
In addition to his lawyers, SBF’s parents with whom the disgraced FTX founder is currently staying have agreed not to allow their son to use their devices nor bring any unpermitted devices to their home.
Proposed earlier at the start of the month, these conditions followed suspicions that SBF attempted to contact witnesses while on bail. Note that the FTX founder has pleaded ‘not guilty’ to the charges of wire fraud and money laundering and shall be standing trial for the same ahead this year in October.
US District Judge Lewis Kaplan will have to approve the new terms before they go into effect.
Sam Bankman-Fried on Bail
As we know, the disgraced FTX founder is currently on bail on a $250 million bond co-signed by his parents. Currently, he’s living in his parent’s home in Palo Alto, California as collateral.
Sam Bankman-Fried landed into major trouble with the dramatic collapse of the crypto exchange FTX back in November 2022. FTX is currently in the restructuring process following its bankruptcy filing last year.
Earlier this year in January, federal prosecutors from Manhattan said that SBF tried to contact current executives at the now-bankrupt FTX exchange. This raised concerns of witness tampering thereby forcing the prosecutors to push severe restrictions on the use of his internet. However, SBF’s lawyers said that he was just trying to help and not interfere.
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