Federal prosecutors asked a federal judge to detain Sam Bankman-Fried months before the former FTX CEO is set to stand trial.
During a hearing on Wednesday in a Manhattan federal court, prosecutor Danielle Sassoon said “no set of release conditions can ensure the safety of the community,” according to Reuters.
The request comes a week after the U.S. Department of Justice accused Bankman-Fried of leaking the private diary of a former colleague, Caroline Ellison, to the media. Ellison ran FTX’s sister trading company Alameda Research and pleaded guilty to multiple charges last year.
Sassoon told the court on Wednesday that Bankman-Fried, who’s currently under house arrest, tried to “intimidate” Ellison and made “100 calls to the reporter of the NYT article, some for more than 20 min,” according to Inner City Press.
Bankman-Fried faces slew of charges
Counsel for Bankman-Fried agreed that he would not talk publicly about the case but said it should be applied to “all parties and witnesses” including FTX, Alameda Research and current FTX CEO John Ray, according to a letter filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York over the weekend.
Bankman-Fried faces over 100 years in prison if he is convicted of a slew of charges, including fraud, over allegations that he and other FTX executives used billions of customer assets to make their own failed investments. FTX filed for bankruptcy late last year.
