How some fortunes change, seemingly overnight.

One minute you’re the toast of the town, the next? A few measly business reversals and BOOM. People are talking bad about you.

Sam Bankman-Fried fits that description. He’s had a helluva ride since spring.

Ah, SBF – for a while it seemed like you might slide on by again. He’s made all sorts of friends in all the right places as he was awfully adept at greasing just the right palms.

"The new indictment charges the 31-year-old former billionaire with seven counts of conspiracy and fraud over the collapse of the exchange. He has previously pleaded not guilty." (Reuters)

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) August 14, 2023

And I do mean the right palms with some serious cha-ching.

SBF previously was charged with violating campaign finance laws.

He gave $42 million to Democrats & "dark money" to Republicans.

Click here to see who SBF gave money to: https://t.co/araVgIsCG3

— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) August 14, 2023

As of the August 14th indictments, there hasn’t been a rush to return any of it. Are they hedging their bets?

It didn’t hurt that SBF was kinda goofy looky and really goofy acting, and had that atrociously jeune fille accomplice as his betrothed.

Who doesn’t love a big-hearted frat boy? Bill Clinton hit the White House using that schtick. SBF used it to amass a fortune as well as a fortune in other people’s money, and he wasn’t shy about handing it out.

Even after he got nailed on federal bank fraud and money laundering charges – some of which have been peeled away and dropped thanks to worry over friction with the mighty nation of “The Bahamas”…

Federal charges against him seem to drop like the balance in his FTX account. One minute he’s charged with a federal campaign violation, and the next minute…

WHERE’D IT GO?

…people are still singing his praises. He’s just so damn cute for a young guy, no?

“I have to say Sam Bankman-Fried is quite an impressive guy. I mean, he’s a young man, he just turned 30, his business acumen is absolutely amazing…”

Jean Chalopin, Chairman of Deltec Bank in The Bahamas, says the most impressive CEO he’s met in crypto is…

You guessed it, SBF. “His greed is to help other people,” he says.

This man runs a bank. pic.twitter.com/yYdOwayn6T

— H.E. Cas Piancey (@CasPiancey) August 22, 2023

He’s SO smart and sure of himself, even after being warned numerous times about potential witness tampering, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut, constantly contacting reporters and others concerning his case.

Eleven days ago, he made one bald-faced move too many – he released the private messages of his now former betrothed and, coincidentally, also prime witness for the prosecution to his adoring fans in the media. Prosecutors went ballistic, and her honor, Judge Kaplan, said “The defendant is remanded.”

That was a big surprise to a defense that had had everything pretty much going their way.

And now, even after the judge allowing SBF access to a computer and his lawyers for extended periods, unlike your average incarcerated scofflaw, there seems to be an issue with needs specific to SBF’s fragile psyche and nutritional requirements.

You see, he’s a vegan in prison – in prison. And he’s not getting his Adderall, which helps him focus.

This is one of the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.

An attorney for FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried said in federal court Tuesday his client has to subsist on bread, water and peanut butter because the jail he’s in isn’t accommodating his vegan diet.

Bankman-Fried, 31, the former billionaire and co-founder of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, appeared in Manhattan federal court where he pleaded not guilty to seven counts. A superseding indictment charged him with wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering that defrauded customers of FTX and lenders to his cryptocurrency hedge fund, Alameda Research.

Defense attorney Mark Cohen said that Bankman-Fried is not getting his prescribed Adderall, which helps him focus, and he is not getting a vegan diet, so he has had to subsist on bread and water with some peanut butter.

Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn said she doesn’t think the prison can offer vegan, only vegetarian, and she said she would look into the situation right away. Bankman-Fried is currently held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

Oh, that judge is going to find out where the break in communication was. My goodness – he’s SBF!

Bread. water, and peanut butter. Why, no one’s ever survived on peanut butter sammiches. Ever. Not even out of prison can you survive on peanut butter sammiches, or so I’ve been reliably told.

And “flesh meals.” Perish the thought. Don’t they realize who he is?

Bankman-Fried’s legal team told a federal judge that the former crypto billionaire was “subsisting on bread and water” and “sometimes peanut butter,” because the jail can’t accommodate his vegan diet. They said he had only been offered the standard “flesh meals.”

Mark Cohen, an attorney on the case, added that Bankman-Fried had not received any doses of his prescribed medication Adderall, a treatment for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), since being remanded to custody 11 days ago. Cohen said his client only had a “limited” and “dwindling” supply of Emsam, a transdermal patch for treating depression. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is presiding over the criminal trial, had told a jail to provide these prescribed medications to Bankman-Fried.

He certainly sounds like a mess, doesn’t he?

As the mess is entirely of the whiz kid’s making, I’m finding it hard to sympathize with bread and water boy. There are people in America now who would be happy to have a peanut butter sammich AND a roof over their head, and would probably think his “notorious” lock-up…

…Bankman-Fried, also known as SBF, has spent the past 11 days in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, a notoriously overcrowded facility that’s been regularly accused of keeping inmates in inhumane conditions. It’s a far cry from his house arrest, which he spent in the relative luxury of his parents’ Palo Alto home in California.

…was a damn sight safer than anywhere they had to rest their head.

If this is a sympathy ploy, yowsahs – it’s falling on deaf ears. In fact, it’s only serving to highlight the “them and us” differences as judges jump to defense lawyers’ complaints for privileged clients.

If he was such a smart special flower, maybe he should have kept his flesh-meat-free mouth shut on the off chance that prison food wasn’t like ordering kosher before you got on the Concorde.

And I’ll say it again – if I were him, I’d be more worried about whether the cameras were all functioning 24/7, and all the guards on duty were alert rather than peanut butter sammiches.

Just sayin’.