Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has submitted a memorandum on September 1st, urging the court to reject the in limine requests put forth by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ).
Drafted by SBF’s attorney Mark Cohen, the memorandum asserts that the DOJ’s requests are not only unfounded but also overly broad.
Cohen contends that several of the issues raised by the government are not appropriate for consideration at the current stage of the proceedings.
Furthermore, he highlights that the requests seek to introduce irrelevant and prejudicial evidence related to uncharged or past conduct.
This tactic is perceived as an attempt to weaken potential defense strategies and to admit a wide array of hearsay and other inappropriate evidence.
The memorandum goes on to assert that the prosecutor’s requests lack legal support and are practically unworkable, rendering them unfit for approval.
This memorandum follows a series of recent filings by the DOJ, wherein they requested the court’s intervention in multiple aspects of the case.
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On August 28th, the government motioned to disallow all of SBF’s proposed expert witnesses from testifying during the trial.
The DOJ argued that these experts and their accompanying disclosures were plagued by various shortcomings, warranting their exclusion from the proceedings.
A day later, on August 29th, the prosecutor submitted yet another motion, describing SBF’s defense against fraud allegations as “irrelevant” in its present state.
They requested additional disclosures to supplement the already planned defense strategy.
Concurrently, SBF’s legal team has been advocating for his temporary release, asserting that the provided accommodations are inadequate for adequately preparing for the trial scheduled for October.
Additionally, they are in the process of appealing the court’s decision to revoke SBF’s bail, a determination made on August 11th.
The defense argues that the bail revocation was an act of “retaliation” in response to SBF’s exercise of his First Amendment rights.
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