{"id":150794,"date":"2023-09-06T16:34:44","date_gmt":"2023-09-06T11:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/?p=150794"},"modified":"2023-09-06T16:34:44","modified_gmt":"2023-09-06T11:04:44","slug":"sam-bankman-frieds-lawyers-question-former-ftx-founders-ability-to-prepare-for-trial-crypto-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/sam-bankman-frieds-lawyers-question-former-ftx-founders-ability-to-prepare-for-trial-crypto-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Bankman-Fried’s Lawyers Question Former FTX Founder\u2019s Ability to Prepare for Trial – Crypto News"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has been granted sufficient access to a laptop to review discovery materials related to the criminal case brought against him, claims the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).<\/p>\n

SBF, as the former FTX chief is otherwise known, is currently confined at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), preparing for a trial scheduled for early October. He faces charges including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit securities and commodities fraud.<\/p>\n

In response to a federal judge’s order for a report on the conditions Bankman-Fried is facing during his detention, prosecutors stated that the defendant has access to an air-gapped laptop in a visiting room during specific hours on weekdays and weekends.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince August 31, 2023, the defendant has had the ability to review electronic discovery at the MDC with an air-gapped laptop that is available in the legal visiting room 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, and 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Saturday through Sunday and holidays,\u201d reads the letter<\/a> filed on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Last month, SBF\u2019s defense argued<\/a> that the FTX founder is the only one who has complete knowledge of the enormous amount of information related to the criminal case and therefore\u2014in order to be properly prepared for the trial\u2014he needs access to essential online documents.<\/p>\n

The prosecutors further claimed that up to this point, there have been no reported problems or issues with the functionality of the USB ports or the software applications that have been used.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the letter said that in response to the defense counsel\u2019s request, the MDC has allowed SBF to use a second air-gapped laptop \u201cfor increased convenience.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the DOJ, three internet speed tests\u2014conducted at varying times throughout the day in the cell block area where Bankman-Fried has access to the internet-enabled laptop\u2014showed that during the morning and early afternoon, the download transfer rate was recorded at 34 Mbps.<\/p>\n

During the late afternoon, the download transfer rate was recorded at 7.5 Mbps, which, as the prosecutors asserts, is \u201csufficient for most internet review activities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter added that \u201cthe internet-enabled laptop has also been updated with a new 9-cell battery provided by defense counsel that has approximately 8 hours battery life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defense hits back<\/h2>\n

In response to the prosecutors\u2019 claims, Bankman-Fried’s legal team, represented by Cohen and Gresser LLP, argued<\/a> that, even under the current setup, he \u201cwill not have a meaningful opportunity to prepare his defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawyers also pointed to a specific incident on September 1, where the MDC staff instructed Bankman-Fried to leave the visitation area early, resulting in the loss of about 4.5 hours of valuable work time for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cLosing 4 hours per day (20 hours per week), is not what the Government promised and is not workable,\u201d said the defense.<\/p>\n

SBF\u2019s legal counsel further stated that the process of communicating with their client is still too \u201cslow and cumbersome\u201d and their visits \u201ctake away some of the time that Mr. Bankman-Fried is able to use for discovery review.\u201d<\/p>\n

To that end, the defense reiterated their request for Bankman-Fried\u2019s temporary release, saying that \u201cthe Government has not devised a plan that works in practice.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

Stay on top of crypto news, get daily updates in your inbox.<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has been granted sufficient access to a laptop to review discovery materials related to the criminal case brought against him, claims the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). SBF, as the former FTX chief is otherwise known, is currently confined at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[230,225,221,227,226,228,229,60,223,224,222],"class_list":["post-150794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency","tag-brave","tag-coinbase","tag-crypto","tag-decentralised","tag-decentralized","tag-decentralized-exchange","tag-erc-20","tag-featured","tag-meme-coin","tag-robinhood","tag-solana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150794"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150796,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150794\/revisions\/150796"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}