Prosecutors say FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is harassing a key witness at his upcoming trial

NEW YORK –

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is harassing a key witness towards him at his upcoming trial by giving a newspaper private issues she wrote whereas she was the chief govt of his cryptocurrency hedge fund buying and selling agency, prosecutors say.

They requested a decide late Thursday to order trial individuals to not make statements that may taint the yet-to-be-chosen jury in a prison case over allegations that Bankman-Fried and different prime executives cheated traders and looted FTX buyer deposits, partly to fund lavish life.

In a letter to Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, prosecutors stated Bankman-Fried gave a few of Caroline Ellison’s private correspondence to The New York Times. They stated that had the impact of harassing her and appeared designed to discourage different potential trial witnesses from testifying.

They known as it an effort to “publicly discredit a government witness” and intrude with an Oct. 2 trial.

Ellison, 28, was CEO of Alameda Research, a cryptocurrency hedge fund buying and selling agency that was an offshoot of FTX.

FTX entered chapter in November when the worldwide alternate ran out of cash after the equal of a financial institution run.

Ellison pleaded responsible in December to prison expenses that carry a possible penalty of 110 years in jail. She has agreed to testify towards Bankman-Fried, 31, as a part of a deal that might lead to leniency.

Prosecutors stated attorneys for Bankman-Fried confirmed that their shopper had shared paperwork that weren’t presently a part of trial proof with The New York Times earlier than it revealed an article Thursday with the headline: “Private Writings of Caroline Ellison, Star Witness in the FTX Case.”

According to the article, Ellison wrote that she didn’t suppose she was nicely suited to working Alameda or decisive as a pacesetter, and the doubts occurred as she coped with the breakup of a sporadic romantic relationship with Bankman-Fried.

The Times reported that in April 2022, Ellison wrote in a Google doc that an earlier breakup with Bankman-Fried had “significantly decreased my excitement about Alameda” and that life on the hedge fund “felt too associated with you in a way that was painful.”

Lawyers for Ellison and for Bankman-Fried didn’t return emails looking for remark Friday. A spokesperson for prosecutors declined remark.

In their letter to Kaplan, prosecutors stopped wanting asking the decide to jail Bankman-Fried within the weeks earlier than his trial.

They stated Ellison was anticipated to testify at trial that she agreed with Bankman-Fried to defraud FTX’s prospects and traders and Alameda’s lenders.

Prosecutors accused Bankman-Fried of attempting to “cast Ellison in a poor light, and advance his defense through the press and outside the constraints of the courtroom and rules of evidence: that Ellison was a jilted lover who perpetrated these crimes alone.”

They stated they count on “overwhelming evidence to give the lie to this defence,” they usually known as it improper and prejudicial for Bankman-Fried to malign Ellison’s credibility earlier than the trial.

Prosecutors additionally wrote that attorneys for potential trial witnesses, together with some who dwell overseas, stated their shoppers had been hesitant to testify in a case with persistent media consideration.

“These witness concerns will only be heightened if witnesses are made to fear that a consequence of testifying against the defendant may include personal humiliation and efforts to discredit their reputation that go beyond what the rules of evidence might permit during cross examination,” prosecutors wrote.

Earlier this 12 months, Kaplan had steered that jailing Bankman-Fried was potential after prosecutors complained that he discovered methods to get round limits positioned on his digital communications as a part of a US$250 million private recognizance bond issued after his December arrest that requires him to dwell along with his dad and mom in Palo Alto, California.

In February, prosecutors stated he may need tried to affect a witness when he despatched an encrypted message in January over a texting app to a prime FTX lawyer, saying he “would really love to reconnect and see if there’s a way for us to have a constructive relationship, use each other as resources when possible, or at least vet things with each other.”

At a February listening to, the decide stated prosecutors described issues Bankman-Fried had accomplished after his arrest “that suggests to me that maybe he has committed or attempted to commit a federal felony while on release.”