The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) recently filed a complaint against Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the founder of FTX, alleging that he leaked private documents belonging to Caroline Ellison, who was previously both his business ally and romantic partner.
According to the complaint filed on July 20, the DoJ claims that Bankman-Fried attempted to interfere with a fair trial by publicly discrediting Ellison, who had become a government witness in SBF’s case in late 2022.
The accusation is based on Bankman-Fried’s act of sharing Ellison’s personal writings with a reporter, resulting in the publication of an article by The New York Times on July 20.
The U.S. Attorney Damian Williams argued that SBF aimed to discredit the government witness by featuring her private documents in the article.
The DoJ does not explicitly name the source of the leaked documents in the article, but Williams asserts that it is apparent that Bankman-Fried was responsible for sharing them.
Defense counsel confirmed that SBF had met with one of the article’s authors in person and provided documents that were not part of the government’s discovery material.
Williams highlights that these documents seem to have originated from Bankman-Fried’s personal Google Drive account and were not part of the case’s discovery materials.
He emphasizes that releasing non-public information that could interfere with a fair trial is prohibited by U.S. federal rules of civil procedure.
The government requests the court to enter an order, pursuant to Local Rule 23.1, which prohibits extrajudicial statements by parties and witnesses likely to affect the right to a fair trial by an impartial jury.
Williams stresses that having the article published in a reputable newspaper without identifying the defendant as the source misleads readers and compounds the risk of tainting prospective jurors.
As of now, both the DoJ and SBF’s defense attorneys have not responded to media inquiries about the complaint.
FTX, once a major global cryptocurrency exchange, experienced a collapse in mid-November 2022, possibly due to the liquidity crisis of the company’s FTT token and the 2022 bear market.
The link between FTX and Alameda was also cited as a contributing factor to the collapse.
Following the implosion of his crypto empire, Bankman-Fried faced seven lawsuits by early December 2022.
He is scheduled to appear in court on October 2 to address multiple charges, including fraud, illegal political donations, and bribes to the Chinese government.
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