Sam Bankman-Fried prosecutors ask judge to tighten bail conditions

The move follows the disgraced cryptocurrency executive's attempt to contact a potential witness in his criminal case, prosecutors said.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said on Friday that disgraced cryptocurrency executive Sam Bankman-Fried attempted to contact a potential witness in his criminal case, and they have asked a judge to impose new bail conditions limiting his ability to communicate with former colleagues.

In a court filing, the U.S. District Attorney's Office southern New York said Mr. Bankman-Fried sent messages via email and the encrypted messaging app Signal this month to the general counsel of the U.S. branch of FTX, the crypto exchange. currency he founded. Mr. Bankman-Fried, 30, has been charged with fraud, money laundering and campaign finance violations related to the implosion of FTX last year.

The communication was an effort to influence the potential testimony of Witness-1," the filing states. "This is particularly concerning given that the accused knows that Witness 1 has information that would tend to incriminate him."

Prosecutors have asked Judge Lewis A Kaplan, who is overseeing Mr. Bankman-Fried's case, to prohibit the contractor from contacting current and former FTX employees or using Signal or other encrypted apps to communicate.

A spokesperson for Mr. Bankman-Fried did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Bankman-Fried made FTX one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world before the company filed for bankruptcy in November. He was arrested in December at his home in the Bahamas, where FTX was based, and later extradited to the United States to face criminal charges. Judge Kaplan granted him bail under very restrictive conditions, confining him to his parents' home near the Stanford University campus in Northern California.

Mr. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

Since his confinement at home, Mr. Bankman-Fried has entertained visitors, including author Michael Lewis , who is writing a book about him. He has also begun mounting a defense, writing articles on Substack that detail his version of the events that led to FTX's collapse.

According to the filing of On Friday, Mr. Bankman-Fried wrote to the FTX U.S. General Counsel on January 15, saying he "would really like to reconnect and see if there's a way for us to have a constructive relationship, to use as resources when possible, or at least to check things out with each other."

Prosecutors said the witness "has direct knowledge of the conduct of the accused during the indicted conspiracies” and participated in communications on Signal and the Slack messaging system with a small group of insiders the month FTX collapsed. Mr. Bankman-Fried also contacted other employees current and former FTX files, depending on the file.

The document does not identify not the witness by name. FTX U.S.'s general counsel is Ryne Miller, according to his LinkedIn page.

Through much of his tenure at FTX, Mr. Bankman-Fried relied on Signal, which gives people the option to automatically delete posts. Prosecutors say he also ordered employees of FTX and Alameda Research, a hedge fund he founded, to make their communications automatically disappear after 30 days or less.

"The automatic removal of Slack and Signal communications from FTX and Alameda impeded the government investigation," the filing reads. "Potential witnesses...