According to a Tuesday court document, federal prosecutors dispute former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s allegations that his use of a special laptop and other court-ordered accommodations haven’t done much to assist him prepare his case while he’s imprisoned.The letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan comes days after Bankman-Fried’s attorneys asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to give their client access to a cellblock and an internet-capable laptop five days a week in the weeks preceding his October trial at the federal courthouse in Manhattan, New York.
However, the prosecution claims that Bankman-Fried’s technological limitations are only temporary.
“inconveniences” that have not hindered his defense preparation and are necessary as a result of his alleged “witness tampering.”
“The defendant’s unlimited access to these resources was curtailed solely as a consequence of his own criminal activities while on bail,” prosecutors said in the letter.
The prosecutors also noted Bankman-Fried’s access to technological devices to review evidence against him already “go[es] beyond the discovery access and review generally available to pretrial detainees.”
While detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, Bankman-Fried is permitted to use a laptop that is not online.Additionally, he is permitted to work twice weekly from a cellblock at the federal courtroom in Manhattan using an internet-connected laptop with Microsoft Office, Excel, PowerPoint, and Adobe Acrobat installed.Prosecutors stated in the filing that the former executive has declined to go back to that cellblock because he wants more comprehensive pretrial release conditions.
Nearly a week has passed since Judge Kaplan rejected Bankman-Fried’s request to attend his attorneys’ offices in Manhattan five days per week leading up to the October trial. The defense has since voiced objections about the technology made available to their client.Judge Kaplan determined that Bankman-Fried had violated his bail terms by seeking to intimidate former executives at his companies, including former Alameda Research co-CEO Caroline Ellison. As a result, the former FTX executive forfeited his bail earlier this month.
An issue that has been at the center of numerous hearings leading up to the trial is Bankman-Fried’s access to technology.A VPN and Google Drive were used by Bankman-Fried while he was under house arrest at his parent’s residence in California. According to the prosecution, doing so allowed him to tamper with government witnesses.In addition, the DOJ requested that the court reject Bankman-Fried’s defense strategy, referring to it as “irrelevant” without providing any further information.