FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried Agrees to Gag Order With Bail Status in Jeopardy
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has agreed to a gag order largely preventing him from publicly discussing his case after prosecutors accused him of trying to discredit their star witness, Caroline Ellison.
The order still needs to be approved by US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who has summoned the former chief executive officer to appear in court Wednesday. The judge will deal with the “adequacy and continuation” of Bankman-Fried's bail, suggesting his current house arrest could be in jeopardy.
According to the proposed order, filed in federal court Manhattan Monday, Bankman-Fried and other parties would be banned from discussing anything with the press that could interfere with a fair trial. That would include statements about the credibility of witnesses, information that isn't admissible at trial and anything that could influence public opinion about the case. The proposed order, which prosecutors filed, extends to attorneys, but doesn't prevent the 31-year-old from asserting his innocence.
Bankman-Fried, who is accused of orchestrating a multi-billion dollar fraud at his now bankrupt crypto exchange, found himself under new scrutiny last week following a story in The New York Times about Ellison's diary. Ellison, who pleaded guilty to fraud in a deal with prosecutors, was the CEO of Alameda Research – FTX's hedge fund affiliate. She also at one point dated Bankman-Fried.
The story was based on Ellison's writings in Google Docs and in personal journals. The excerpts appeared to reveal Ellison's ambivalence about her role at FTX and relationship with Bankman-Fried.
Federal prosecutors filed a scathing letter accusing Bankman-Fried of leaking the material to the newspaper to “cast Ellison in a poor light, and advance his
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