Will the criminal trial of the FTX co-founder scheduled to begin in October be delayed? On Wednesday, a virtual hearing was conducted after which this question gained momentum.
According to reports, Judge Lewis Kaplan was mulling over the idea of delaying Bankman-Fried’s trial.
This was because his legal team continued to share concerns in the said hearing about the inability of their client to prepare for his trial adequately.
The issues
Judge Kaplan inquired about the issues that the defense team was facing and one of the attorneys revealed that during the first appearance of their client, his computer only had an hour of battery life.
In addition, essential software was also unavailable on the computer, which included Microsoft Office. As far as internet accessibility is concerned, the absence of a 5G connection was acknowledged by Assistant US Attorney Danielle M.Kudla.
Later, Judge Kaplan put the question of postponing the trial to the defense team and asked them if they intended to do it.
He also added that if they want to do so, they should make a move by the end of the week. The judge also asked that a joint report by submitted to the court by Tuesday morning.
The possibility
The final window that the judge cemented for any appeals of postponing the trial was set on September 7th and the judge asked to provide details of the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn.
There seem to be slim chances of postponing the trial. According to Assistant US Attorney Kudla, there is enough time and resources available to Bankman-Fried to prepare for his trial.
According to a report, she said that he has about 70 hours per week for viewing the discovery and his legal team has been permitted to visit him all seven days of the week.
She added that he has a lot of experts and lawyers who are preparing round the clock because it is a pro se defendant.
The clock is ticking
On August 11th, the disgraced crypto mogul had his bail revoked, after which he was sent to the MDC in Brooklyn.
His criminal trial is imminent and slated to start on October 3rd in which he will face a total of seven charges.
There is also another trial that will begin next year on March 11th, where he will have to defend himself against six more charges.
A plea had been lodged in the previous team by his legal team for getting him released temporarily and they emphasized that there were about 4 million pages of evidence that he had to review before the trial.
On Wednesday, a new filing had been sent to Judge Lewis Kaplan in which his attorneys had summarized their complaints.
The filing said that the Sixth Amendment Rights of the former FTX CEO were being violated because he was unable to prepare for his trial adequately and was unable to prepare for his defense.
They also stated that this meant inadequate representation and it would not be possible to solve it, as long as their client remains incarcerated and does not have internet access.