NEW YORK :A U.S. judge on Wednesday tightened Sam Bankman-Fried's bail conditions, restricting his ability to communicate publicly, and will consider jailing him ahead of his trial over the collapse of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange.
Federal prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan to have Sam Bankman-Fried jailed, saying he had "crossed a line" by sharing his former romantic partner Caroline Ellison's personal writings with a reporter in what they said amounted to a second instance of witness tampering.
Kaplan declined to jail Bankman-Fried immediately, but imposed a "gag order" previously requested by prosecutors and gave both sides until Aug. 3 to elaborate on their positions in written submissions.
"I'm very mindful of the government's interest in this issue, which I take seriously," Kaplan said at a hearing in Manhattan federal court. "Mr. Bankman-Fried, you'd better take it seriously too."
Mark Cohen, a lawyer for Bankman-Fried, said that through his contacts with journalists his client was trying merely to protect his reputation, and that it "really would be almost impossible" to prepare for trial if Bankman-Fried were jailed.
Bankman-Fried has been largely confined to his parents' home in Palo Alto, California, since his extradition in December from the Bahamas, where he was arrested and where FTX was based.
Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to charges he stole billions of dollars in FTX customer funds in part to plug losses at his crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research.
Ellison, also Alameda's former chief executive, has pleaded guilty to fraud charges and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.