According to lawyers representing the ex-CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried did talk to the New York Times and shared documents last week for a storing about the ex-CEO of Alameda Research.
However, they also added that sharing details about Caroline Ellison was not wrong on the part of the FTX co-founder.
Last week, the New York Times published an in-depth article on Ellison, who had been a former lover of Bankman-Fried.
The prosecutors
After the article, the US prosecutors claimed that Bankman-Fried had been trying to ‘discredit’ Ellison due to which he had shared her personal diary entries with the press.
SBF is facing criminal charges for the role he played as the CEO of FTX and his trial is scheduled to begin in October.
The prosecutors also requested a judge to prevent the Bankman-Fried from making statements that could cause a hindrance in ensuring a fair trial.
Over the weekend, a letter was sent to Judge Lewis A. Kaplan by Bankman-Fried’s attorneys and they accused the prosecution of misconstruing a scenario where nothing impermissible or improper had happened.
The lawyers
Cohen & Gressler LLP, the law firm representing SBF, said on July 22nd that Bankman-Fried had not been trying to discredit Caroline Ellison or mess with the jury pool.
The lawyers said that the publication had been working on the said article for months and Bankman-Fried had been within his rights to reply.
The letter from the attorneys said that there had not been a violation of the protective order, of bail conditions or any rule or law related to his conduct.
Instead, Bankman-Fried had responded to media inquiries, something that is within his rights in accordance with the First and Sixth Amendments.
The article
According to the New York Times, Ellison had felt overwhelmed and unhappy in her position as the head of the sister company of FTX.
She had admitted in her diary entries that she did not deem herself suitable for the role and had struggled in some areas.
She had also allegedly written that the collapse of FTX had felt great because it meant that she could put it behind her.
According to SBF’s lawyers, Ellison had been depicted in the NYT article as sympathetically light, while the same did not happen to the FTX co-founder.
They also called out John J. Ray III, the new CEO of FTX, for attacking his predecessor gratuitously and routinely.
The attorneys said that despite the public attacks made on Bankman-Fried, he had continued to assert his innocence and was in his right to speak to the media for countering the public narrative.
His legal team also stated that no bail conditions had been violated when a Times reporter came to visit Bankman-Fried in Palo Alto, California at his parent’s home.
They said that the visit was not a secret one and that all procedures mentioned in the bail conditions about visitors had been followed.
They denied suggestions of Bankman-Fried trying to discredit or harass Ellison, or casting her in a negative light.