After revoking the FTX founder’s bail just weeks before his trial, a federal judge allowed Sam Bankman-Fried’s attorneys to visit their client in jail, according to an order made public on Wednesday.The court decreed that Bankman-Fried’s legal representatives “can take unlimited advantage of the legal visitation hours” at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, New York, to get their client ready for a trial that will last for many weeks and start on October 3.The judge stated in the ruling that Bankman-Fried will have “frequent access” to a computer to review discovery materials and that he has the option to request that “selected materials” be loaded onto hard drives for his inspection.
Other adjustments provided by the New York Bureau of Prisons are also included in the ruling, but they were redacted in a letter submitted by the prosecution last week.The defense requested that Bankman-Fried be moved to a lower-security jail in Putnam County, two hours north of New York City, or released for daily sessions with his attorneys at their Manhattan office, but Judge Lewis Kaplan’s concessions fell short of these demands.
Following the judge’s ruling that the former executive had repeatedly broken the terms of his bail by seeking to contact witnesses who were supposed to testify against him, Bankman-Fried was sent to a maximum security jail two weeks ago.The crypto kingpin was censured by authorities for speaking to one of his former executives earlier this year while using a virtual private network (VPN).Months later, he received a similar reprimand for allegedly leaking the journal entries of former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison to the New York Times in an effort to intimidate Ellison, according to the prosecution.