SBF Could Face Jail Time if Internet Access Is Not Curtailed

SBF Could Face Jail Time if Internet Access Is Not Curtailed

Time Stamp: February 17, 2023 7:53 AM
Source Node: 1963222

A federal judge isn’t happy with former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s unrestricted access to the internet and electronic devices.

In a Thursday hearing, reported by the The New York Times, judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversees Bankman-Fried’s fraud case signalled he was willing to jail the FTX founder for testing the boundaries of his bail restrictions.

“Why am I being asked to turn him loose in this garden of electronic devices?,” said Kaplan in the hearing.

Bankman-Fried was ordered to appear in court after prosecutors raised concerns to the judge in a letter earlier this week, saying that he had used a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to access the internet on more than one occasion over the last few months 

Mark Cohen, Bankman-Fried’s legal counsel, explained that he had used the VPN to watch football games with his international streaming service subscription which he registered for when he lived in the Bahamas. Cohen said that there was no television in Bankman-Fried’s parents’ house in Palo Alto, where he resides as per his $250 million bail bond agreement.

According to reporting from David Gura, an NPR correspondent who was present in the courtroom, the government has proposed revising Bankman-Fried’s bail to have his access revoked except for a single smartphone and laptop, which will be monitored by authorities.

Judge Kaplan did not appear convinced by the prosecutors’ suggestions to limit Bankman-Fried’s access to technology, and seemed to hint at a more permanent solution for the problem – curtailing his access to the internet entirely.

“There is a solution. But it’s not one anyone has proposed yet,” said judge Kaplan in the hearing.

No further amendments were made to Bankman-Fried’s bail restrictions at the hearing, but will likely be determined next week. The judge also noted that while the hearing was not called to consider bail revocation, “it could get there, conceivably.”

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