Bread, Water and Peanut Butter: Sam Bankman-Fried’s Life in Jail

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Mr. Bankman-Fried, founder of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has protested his conditions at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center as he awaits trial on fraud charges.

Sam Bankman-Fried has spent nearly a month at the Metropolitan Detention Center, a jail in Brooklyn, since a judge revoked his bail in August. | Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
A diet of bread, water and peanut butter. A laptop with no internet connection. And intermittent access to millions of pages of digital evidence.

Sam Bankman-Fried, the 31-year-old cryptocurrency mogul, has spent nearly a month at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since a federal judge revoked his bail in August. As Mr. Bankman-Fried prepares for a fraud trial next month over the collapse of his crypto exchange, FTX, his lawyers have offered a picture of the conditions he has faced at the jail — a far cry from the Bahamas penthouse he once shared with other billionaire executives.

In a series of court filings, Mr. Bankman-Fried’s lawyers have raised issues such as the disruption to his vegan diet in jail, as well as his dwindling supplies of prescribed medication like Adderall, which treats A.D.H.D. They have also said he has not been getting enough access to the internet to prepare for his trial and should be released.

On Tuesday, those lawyers and the prosecutors bringing the case continued to argue in letters to the judge over whether enough accommodations have been made so that Mr. Bankman-Fried has access to a laptop and consistent internet service to review materials for trial. They did not reach a resolution, leaving it for the judge to decide. » | David Yaffe-Bellany and Matthew Goldstein | Tuessday, September 5, 2023

FTX Boss Sam Bankman-Fried Charged with Defrauding Investors by US - BBC News

Dec 13, 2022 | Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has been charged with defrauding investors of billions of dollars by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC said Mr Bankman-Fried, who was arrested in the Bahamas on Monday, had “built a house of cards on a foundation of deception”. It is alleged Mr Bankman-Fried used FTX customers’ funds for his privately-held crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research LLC. A court filing shows FTX owed its 50 largest creditors almost $3.1bn.

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FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried Is Arrested in the Bahamas

THE NEW YORK TIMES: A statement by the government of the Bahamas said Mr. Bankman-Fried was arrested after prosecutors in the United States filed criminal charges.

Sam Bankman-Fried in the Bahamas in April. | Erika P. Rodriguez for The New York Times
Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was arrested in the Bahamas on Monday after U.S. prosecutors filed criminal charges.

“S.B.F.’s arrest followed receipt of formal notification from the United States that it has filed criminal charges against S.B.F. and is likely to request his extradition,” the government of the Bahamas said in a statement.

The arrest was the latest stunning development in one of the most dramatic falls from grace in recent corporate history. Mr. Bankman-Fried, 30, was scheduled to testify in Congress on Tuesday about the collapse of FTX, which was one of the most powerful firms in the emerging crypto industry until it imploded virtually overnight last month after a run on deposits exposed an $8 billion hole in its accounts.

Prosecutors for the Southern District of New York confirmed that Mr. Bankman-Fried had been charged and said an indictment would be unsealed on Tuesday. Separately, the Securities and Exchange Commission said in a statement that it had authorized charges “relating to Mr. Bankman-Fried’s violations of our securities laws.” » | David Yaffe-Bellany, William K. Rashbaum and Matthew Goldstein | Monday, December 12, 2022