A judge on Thursday closed the door on FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s hopes of being free during his trial, though he extended the hours the cryptocurrency peddler can meet with his lawyers at a federal courthouse.
During a hearing, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan rejected a request from Bankman-Fried’s lawyers to release their client so he could better prepare his defense against charges that he defrauded cryptocurrency investors.
Bankman-Fried, 31, faces the start of his trial in Manhattan on Tuesday. He has pleaded not guilty.
His attorney, Mark Cohen, told Kaplan that he cannot meaningfully consult with his client while Bankman-Fried is in custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
And he insisted there was no risk of Bankman-Fried fleeing, prompting Kaplan to interrupt him.
The closer we get to the trial, the more I wonder about that, Kaplan said. When things start to look bleak, your client may feel that if that were to happen and if he were given the opportunity, the time might come when he would look to flee.
Kaplan revoked Bankman-Fried’s $250 million bail last month after concluding that Bankman-Fried had tried to influence potential witnesses.
Since being brought to the United States from the Bahamas last December, Bankman-Fried has been forced to stay at his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California, with very limited access to electronics.
Prosecutors say he deliberately misled customers and investors to enrich himself and others while playing a central role in the multibillion-dollar company’s collapse following the equivalent of a bank run.
Kaplan said Bankman-Fried had sufficient time to prepare for trial during the more than seven months during which he had unfettered access to evidence turned over by prosecutors and as a result of extraordinary measures taken in federal prison to allowing him to work on his defense. .
And he said the case against him was by no means unique in presenting challenges to assessing evidence. He noted that some drug conspiracy cases involve hundreds of thousands of hours of audio and surveillance tapes, often in foreign languages.
However, the judge said he wanted to make every effort to address the suspect’s concerns and would therefore order that he be brought to the courthouse at 7 a.m. on some days to work with his lawyers before the day of the trial would start a few hours later.
The process is expected to take six weeks.
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