Listen to the Article: FTX's Ex-Boss SBF Back in Headlines! How Did He Get His Bail Axed?

​

Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) is heading to jail. Yes, you heard that right, the notorious crypto con artist of last year, SBF, is finally getting busted, even after he forked out a staggering bail of $250 million, he still landed behind bars.

(Fazzaco has been tracking and reporting on this event since FTX ran into a liquidity crisis last November, and launched a special feature FTX Collapse: Shock and Aftermath​)

Last Friday Eastern Time, in the federal court of the Southern District of New York, Judge Lewis Kaplan granted the prosecution's request, revoked the bail, and locked up SBF, the former CEO of FTX, previously the world's third-largest cryptocurrency exchange, in jail, awaiting trial for the FTX fraud case.

Where Had SBF Been Hiding for the Past 10 Months?

After the FTX debacle at the end of last year, SBF's whereabouts was a hot topic in the crypto community. Soon enough, he was found holed up in the Bahamas. On December 12, 2022, the Bahamian police department nabbed him after receiving criminal charges from the US authorities, and shipped him back to the US within a week.

Shortly after, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) jointly slapped charges against several FTX bigwigs, including SBF's ex-girlfriend, Alameda's CEO Caroline Ellison, which had a murky relationship with FTX, and exchange's co-founder Gary Wang.

Next came the jaw-dropping $250 million bail, the highest ever. After coughing up this enormous sum of money, SBF strapped on an electronic bracelet and moved to his parents' home in Palo Alto, California, waiting for the trial slated for October this year.

And why did the prosecutors yank SBF's bail before the trial in October? It seems that he did more than just catch up with his family during these ten months at home.

The Reason for Revoking Bail: Leaking Ex's Diary to the Media, Amounting to Witness Tampering

When the FTX scandal first broke out, two other defendants, namely partner Gary Wang and SBF's ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison both copped a plea. The charges involved wire fraud, securities fraud, money laundering and so on. Because the previous rumor was that FTX had a liquidity crunch because more than $10 billion of customer assets were illicitly siphoned off to Alameda as a venture capital fund by Ellison, resulting in a funding shortfall.

But SBF never admitted guilt and claimed that it was Alameda who dipped into customer assets and had nothing to do with FTX. Ellison's testimony was exactly the opposite. She said that she and SBF colluded to obtain credit lines from FTX accounts without collateral and no negative balance since 2019.

So, media analysts said that SBF did some unacceptable interference with witnesses and obstruction of justice during these ten months of his bail. According to the prosecutors, SBF accepted an interview with The New York Times during this period and leaked his ex-girlfriend's personal diaries in an attempt to improperly deter her from giving unfavorable testimony against him at the October trial.

The presiding judge Lewis Kaplan said that there was probable reason to believe that the defendant had tried to meddle with witnesses at least twice.

Interestingly, The New York Times had opposed arresting SBF on the grounds of freedom of speech, arguing that his communication with reporters was an exercise of his right to freedom of speech granted by the US Constitution and could not constitute a breach of bail conditions.

And now, SBF who once was one of the richest young people in the world has been confirmed to be detained in Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in New York State. It is said that the prison conditions are notoriously bad. Since MDC is mainly used for short-term detention (SBF is also detained for a short period of time until his formal trial in October), I wonder if he has ever thought about how he looks today in his cramped cell with only bunk beds, a toilet and a sink?