A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily tightened the FTX founder’s bail conditions after learning that Bankman-Fried sent a text message to a former top executive of the crypto trading platform. The judge said that appeared to be a “material threat of inappropriate contact with prospective witnesses.”
Judge Lewis Kaplan said Bankman-Fried is not allowed to contact current or former employees of FTX without attorneys present, nor to communicate over encrypted messaging apps until Kaplan hears arguments from both sides at a hearing next week.
The restriction comes after federal prosecutors raised the prospect of witness tampering when it discovered that Bankman-Fried had recently contacted the former general counsel of FTX, identified at “Witness-1” in court filings.
[This is what makes defense attorneys get prematurely old. When you are in litigation of any kind but especially in criminal matters, you let your lawyer do all the talking. Period. Or you wind up digging an even deeper hole for yourself. — Ed]
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