The defense counsel of Sam Bankman-Fried submitted an 18-page letter to Federal District Judge Lewis Kaplan to present their argument against the recent motion of the US government to revoke their client’s bail.
According to the defense, the prosecution’s arguments are ‘extremely thin’ and they also claimed that they heavily relied upon innuendo and unsupported assumptions.
Bail revocation
On July 26th, the Department of Justice (DOJ), which represents the US government in the case against the former CEO of FTX, had called for his bail revocation in a hearing.
They had requested that Sam Bankman-Fried’s bail be revoked due to obstruction of justice and witness tampering.
Rather than ruling on the request, Judge Kaplan had instructed the two parties to submit their written statements regarding the matter.
The DOJ had submitted their motion on July 28th in which Bankman-Fried was accused of sharing documents with a reporter from the New York Times with the sole purpose of tampering with a witness.
This witness was Caroline Ellison, an ex-girlfriend of Sam Bankman-Fried and the former CEO of FTX’s sister trading firm, Alameda Research.
On Tuesday, the defense responded to the motion submitted by the government but did not comment on the matter.
The defense
The co-founder of Alameda Research and the now-bankrupt FTX crypto exchange was extradited to the United States after being arrested in the Bahamas.
On December 21st, nine days after his arrest, Bankman-Fried had been let out on bail. However, the DOJ is now aiming at putting him back in remand.
During the hearing that occurred last Wednesday, the government said that there had been 100 phone calls between Bankman-Fried and the reporter from New York Times.
It said that Bankman-Fried had shared documents with the reporter that had not been part of the discovery material of the government.
On Tuesday, the defense said that innuendo cannot be considered evidence because the government could not prove that any documents had been shared by SBF.
The arguments
According to the defense, the documents that Bankman-Fried shared with the reporter had already been known.
In fact, the counsel demanded that a hearing be conducted on the matter because it was the government that had shared the documents.
The government has also asserted that Bankman-Fried had used Signal, an encrypted messaging application, for contacting other witnesses and for hiding his online activity via a VPN.
The defense asserted that Bankman-Fried was exercising his rights when he used Signal and. They also produced evidence to show that VPN was used for watching football.
They also asserted that there had not been an improper intent behind Bankman-Fried’s actions and they were not in bad faith.
The letter from the defense counsel also included other arguments, including the fact that Bankman-Friend’s defense efforts would be hindered if he were sent to the Metropolitan Detention Center.
This is because internet access is not granted to the inmates and they are also dealing with a staffing crisis for now.