Sam Bankman-Fried prosecutors are asking the judge to tighten bail terms

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said Friday that the disgraced cryptocurrency executive Sam Bankman Fried had tried to contact a potential witness in his criminal case and they asked a judge for an imposition new deposit conditions Limiting his ability to communicate with former colleagues.

In a court filing, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said Mr Bankman-Fried this month sent messages via email and the encrypted messaging app Signal to the general counsel of the US arm of FTX, which he founded Cryptocurrency exchange, sent . Mr Bankman-Fried, 30, has been charged with fraud, money laundering and campaign finance violations the implosion of FTX last year.

The notice “indicates an effort to influence Witness-1’s potential testimony,” the file says. “This is of particular concern given that the Defendant is aware that Witness-1 has information that tends to incriminate the Defendant.”

Prosecutors asked Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who is overseeing Mr. Bankman-Fried’s case, to ban the entrepreneur from contacting current and former FTX employees or using Signal or other encrypted apps to communicate.

A spokesman for Mr Bankman-Fried did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Bankman-Fried built FTX into one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world before the company filed for bankruptcy in November. He was arrested in December at his home in the Bahamas, where FTX was based, and then extradited to the United States to face criminal charges. Judge Kaplan granted him bail on extremely restrictive terms and locked him in his parents’ home near the Stanford University campus in Northern California.

Mr. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

From his domestic confinement, Mr. Bankman-Fried has entertained visitors including author Michael Lewis, who is writing a book about him. He has also started building a defense and writing posts on Substack detailing his version of the events that led to FTX’s collapse.

According to Friday’s filing, Mr. Bankman-Fried wrote to the general counsel of FTX US on Jan. 15, saying he would “really like to get back in touch and see if there’s a way for us to have a constructive relationship and each other.” as resources if possible, or at least checking things out with each other.

Prosecutors said the witness had “first-hand knowledge of the defendant’s conduct during the accused conspiracies” and participated in communications with a small group of insiders on Signal and the messaging system Slack during the month that FTX collapsed. According to the filing, Mr. Bankman-Fried also contacted other current and former FTX employees.

The document does not name the witness. The General Counsel of FTX US is Ryne Milleraccording to his LinkedIn page.

For much of his tenure at FTX, Mr. Bankman-Fried relied on Signal, which gives people the ability to automatically delete messages. According to prosecutors, he also managed employees of FTX and Alameda Researcha hedge fund he founded to set their communications to automatically disappear after 30 days or less.

“The automatic deletion of Slack and Signal communications from FTX and Alameda has hampered the government investigation,” the filing reads. “Potential witnesses have described relevant and incriminating conversations with the defendant that took place on Slack and Signal that have already been automatically deleted.”

In the court filing, prosecutors said Mr Bankman-Fried’s use of Signal could hamper their efforts to determine if he attempted to contact other potential witnesses while in custody.

“The proposed bail conditions combined would more effectively prevent the defendant from obstructing justice,” the filing reads.