DOJ Demands Communications Ban on SBF

According to federal prosecutors, Sam Bankman-Fried is trying to influence witnesses in the case.

Federal prosecutors wrote a letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan asking for changes to the terms of Sam Bankman-Fried’s bail to include a ban on private communications with former and current staff of FTX and Alameda Research, CoinDesk wrote.

SBF tried to influence witness testimony

The request comes after Bankman-Fried contacted FTX US general counsel Ryne Miller to allegedly try to influence his future witness testimony. The DOJ quotes SBF as saying to Miller:

I would really love to reconnect and see if there’s a way for us to have a constructive relationship, use each other as resources when possible, or at least vet things with each other.

The DOJ also requested that Judge Kaplan take measures to prevent Bankman-Fried from using messaging apps like Signal or encrypted calls.

SBF used Signal to reach out to FTX employees

According to the prosecutors’ letter, Bankman-Fried contacted Miller and other current and former FTX employees using Signal. Prosecutors describe these employees as being highly susceptible to influence as they were his underlings until recently, paid and supervised by him.

Prosecutors said:

Miller participated in Signal and Slack communications with the defendant and a small group of company insiders during the relevant events of November 2022. In those messages, among other things, [Bankman-Fried] gave instructions for liquidating Alameda’s investments to satisfy FTX customer withdrawals, and indicated that he transferred approximately $45 million dollars of Alamedas funds to FTX US to fill an apparent hole in FTX US’s balance sheet.

If accurate, this claim contradicts Bankman-Fried’s persistent statements on social networks and elsewhere that FTX US was solvent when the rest of FTX crashed.

Allegedly, former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison’s testimony revealed that Bankman-Fried intentionally used auto-deleting Signal and Slack messages for business communications because he knew it was harder to build a legal case if data is not preserved or written down.