Disgraced crypto tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried claims detention violates his freedom of speech ahead of trial

Disgraced former crypto tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried’s lawyer sent a letter to the Southern District of New York Tuesday asserting that confining him in jail for talking with a journalist would violate his freedom of speech.

Prosecutors requested a federal judge detain the FTX and Democrat megadonor in jail until his trial scheduled for October due to alleged witness tampering, but Bankman-Fried’s lawyer claimed this would violate his First Amendment freedoms in a letter sent to the court. The judge recently placed a temporary gag order on Bankman-Fried after he allegedly leaked his former girlfriend and business partner Caroline Ellison’s diary entries to The New York Times, according to CNN Business.

“Mr. Bankman-Fried did not express any opinions as to Ms. Ellison’s credibility or guilt. He merely showed a reporter Ms. Ellison’s own prior writings, which the reporter apparently already possessed from other sources,” the letter reads. “The documents were then quoted in the published article, which ultimately painted Ms. Ellison in a favorable light and Mr. Bankman-Fried in a negative light. Remanding Mr. Bankman-Fried on this record would not only be unjust, it would ‘represent[ ] a limitation of First Amendment freedoms greater than is necessary or essential to the protection of the particular governmental interest.’”

The Bahamas extradited SBF to the U.S. when FTX collapsed in December, according to the NYT. Since then, he has been detained at his parents’ California home on a $250 million bond, according to NPR.

“To the extent the Court remains concerned that extrajudicial statements could interfere with a fair trial, the remedy is not to detain the defendant, which would have the effect of chilling free speech,” the letter adds. “Instead, it is to screen potential jurors through extensive voir dire and/or to impose a gag order on the parties—nothing more.”

SBF is slated to face seven charges during his upcoming trial, such as defrauding FTX customers and lenders, according to the NYT. Prosecutors claim that he spearheaded a scheme of diverting billions of dollars from customers’ FTX deposits to finance campaign contributions, donations to charities and real estate acquisitions.

Bankman-Fried’s attorney did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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