The author of what will almost certainly be remembered as the most massive case of financial fraud in the history of the world is unhappy with his current bail conditions. Sam Bankman-Fried is still suffering in his parents’ luxurious California home where he remains under house arrest after pleading not guilty to fraud charges. But under the conditions of his $250 million bail agreement, he isn’t permitted to be in contact with any of his former partners at the now-bankrupt FTX. He’s also not allowed to use encrypted messaging services such as Signal or Slack. His lawyers argue that the restrictions are too severe and were designed to paint their client “in the worst possible light.”  (Reuters)

Lawyers for Sam Bankman-Fried on Saturday urged a U.S. judge not to ban the indicted FTX cryptocurrency executive from communicating with former colleagues as part of his bail, saying prosecutors “sandbagged” the process to put their client in the “worst possible light.”

The lawyers were responding to a Friday night request by federal prosecutors that Bankman-Fried not be allowed to talk with most employees of FTX or his Alameda Research hedge fund without lawyers present, or use the encrypted messaging apps Signal or Slack and potentially delete messages automatically.

Bankman-Fried, 30, has been free on $250 million bond since pleading not guilty to charges of fraud in the looting of billions of dollars from the now-bankrupt FTX.

How the court is supposedly painting SBF “in the worst possible light” is something of a mystery. After all, what good sort of light could he be painted in? I’m still frankly amazed that his attorneys allowed him to put in a not-guilty plea. He could be looking at a century behind bars.

We’re also still waiting to find out who the two people were who signed off on the $250 million bond. His parents’ house is “only” worth $4 million and he said that he was bankrupt when he came back to the United States. It would seem that he bought himself some powerful friends while he was donating tens of millions of dollars (of other people’s money) last year.

As for the restrictions, this guy has a lot of nerve to be complaining. He was already caught trying to contact one of the witnesses from FTX who is expected to testify against him. That’s known as witness tampering and the courts tend to view it as problematic. He was also trying to contact the general counsel of FTX. His attorneys insist he was only trying to “be helpful” and wasn’t seeking to interfere with the investigation.

As to his devices, why would the courts allow him to reach out to people who could potentially be part of the trial using Signal? People use that app so their communications can’t be accessed. It has a self-deleting feature just for that purpose. On this question, his attorneys told the court that it’s not an issue because he has the auto-delete feature “turned off” and concerns that he might use it are “unfounded.”

It seems amazing, but this little charlatan is still acting as if he’s the injured party in all of this. He was just trying to “inspire others” to be more charitable and “spread his good fortune” around to those in need. Unfortunately, what he was “spreading around” was other people’s money. And his massive donations to (almost entirely Democratic Party) political campaigns vastly dwarfed any actual charitable causes that might have been helped.

God only knows how long this trial is going to drag on or whether SBF can come up with some sort of clever way to talk himself out of the hole that he’s dug. But at least he’ll get to pass the time lounging next to his parents’ pool. The kid clearly leads a blessed life. Anyone else would be rotting in an isolation cell at Rikers Island.