Federal prosecutors are pushing back against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s claims that his access to a special laptop and other court-ordered accommodations have done little to help him prepare his defense while he’s confined to prison. According to a Tuesday court filing, prosecutors argue that the technological restrictions imposed on Bankman-Fried are merely inconveniences that have not hindered his defense preparation and are necessary as a result of his alleged witness tampering.
The defendant’s unlimited access to these resources was curtailed solely as a consequence of his own criminal activities while on bail, prosecutors said in the letter. Bankman-Fried is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and has approval to work from an internet-enabled laptop with Microsoft Office, Excel, PowerPoint, and Adobe Acrobat at a cellblock at the federal courthouse in Manhattan twice a week. However, the former executive has refused to return to that cellblock as he seeks more extensive pretrial release measures.
The defense’s complaints about the technology provided to their client come roughly a week after Judge Lewis Kaplan denied Bankman-Fried’s request to visit his lawyers’ offices in Manhattan for five days a week, during the lead up to the October trial. Bankman-Fried lost his bail earlier this month after Judge Kaplan ruled he had attempted to intimidate former executives at his companies, including former Alameda Research co-CEO Caroline Ellison.