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
