Lawyers for Sam Bankman-Fried have argued he should be allowed access to assets and crypto held by his former company FTX, saying there's no evidence he's responsible for previous alleged unauthorized transactions.
Bankman-Fried, who resigned as FTX's chief executive officer on Nov. 11, 2022 when the crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy, is currently on bail facing charges including wire fraud and money laundering, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
As part of his bail conditions, Bankman-Fried was prohibited from accessing cryptocurrency held by FTX and its trading arm, Alameda Research, after the government pointed to illicit transfers made from Alameda wallets. The bar includes crypto purchased with FTX or Alameda funds.
“Nearly three weeks have passed since the initial pretrial conference and we assume that the Government’s investigation has confirmed what Mr. Bankman-Fried has said all along; namely, that he did not access and transfer these assets,” said a Jan. 28 letter from Bankman-Fried’s lawyer, Mark Cohen.
“Given that the sole basis advanced for seeking that condition has not been supported, we believe that the bail condition imposed at the conference should be removed,” Cohen told Lewis Kaplan, a judge in the Southern District of New York.
(By Jack Schickler)
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