© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Indicted FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried exits United States Court docket in Unique York City, Unique York, U.S., June 15, 2023. REUTERS/Mike Segar/ By Shubham Kalia and Gokul Pisharody
(Reuters) -U.S. prosecutors maintain accused FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried of ogle tampering and asked a federal narrate to convey an describe that will bar the aged billionaire and diversified events from making public statements inclined to intervene with a excellent trial.
The prosecutors wrote to U.S. District Think Lewis Kaplan on Thursday referencing a Unique York Occasions article titled "Within the Internal most Writings of Caroline Ellison, Important person Gape within the FTX Case".
The article reported excerpts from Ellison's inside of most Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) documents from ahead of the collapse of FTX in which she spoke about being "rather sad and overwhelmed" alongside with her job and feeling "danger/rejected" from her breakup with Bankman-Fried.
Ellison led Bankman-Fried's Alameda Study hedge fund and has pleaded guilty to defrauding traders and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. In December, Bankman-Fried mentioned he and Ellison had been in a relationship but gave no additional most necessary aspects.
Prosecutors mentioned it used to be apparent Bankman-Fried shared documents with the Unique York Occasions and that his attorneys maintain since confirmed to the executive that he met with one in every of the article's authors in person and shared documents "that weren't section of the executive's discovery enviornment topic."
Bankman-Fried's spokesperson and attorneys didn't straight answer to requests for comment. The Unique York Occasions declined to comment, and Ellison's attorneys didn't answer to a Reuters keep a query to of for comment.
The prosecutors argued that by sharing these documents, Bankman-Fried used to be searching to malign Ellison's credibility, and that such behavior would per chance likely furthermore relax witnesses from testifying and taint the jury pool.
"By selectively sharing obvious non-public documents with the Unique York Occasions, the defendant is trying to discredit a ogle, solid Ellison in a sad gentle, and come his protection thru the press and exterior the constraints of the court docket and guidelines of proof: that Ellison used to be a jilted lover who perpetrated these crimes on my own", prosecutors wrote within the letter.
Earlier on Thursday, FTX Buying and selling sued founder Bankman-Fried and diversified aged executives of the cryptocurrency replace, searching for out to recoup extra than $1 billion they allegedly misappropriated ahead of FTX went bankrupt.
