US DOJ Opposes Sam Bankman-Fried’s Claims on Evidence

<p>The US
Department of Justice (DOJ) has responded to claims by the lawyers of FTX's Founder (Sam
Bankman-Fried) that prosecutors are dumping “millions of pages” of
discovery materials or evidence on the embattled crypto entrepreneur
less than six weeks before his criminal trial. In <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.590940/gov.uscourts.nysd.590940.228.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="follow">a letter</a> sent on Friday to Judge Lewis
Kaplan, who is presiding over the case, Bankman’s legal team had claimed that
prosecutors produced “an additional 4 million pages of discovery” without plans
to make them available for the former CEO of FTX to review.</p><p>DOJ Slams
Bankman-Fried’s Claims</p><p>In another
letter sent yesterday (Monday), the lawyers claimed that US prosecutors produced another 3.7 million pages of discovery. They noted that producing
these materials while Bankman-Fried is currently under detention at the
Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn “is plainly inadequate” and violates
the defendant's right to prepare for his defence. They,
therefore, urged the court to stop prosecutors from using evidence gathered after July 1 during his trial.</p><p>However, in
<a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.590939/gov.uscourts.nysd.590939.237.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="follow">a new letter</a> addressed to Judge Kaplan on Monday, Damian Williams, the US
Attorney for the Southern District of New York, urged the court to dismiss the
request, noting that the evidence was gathered from Bankman-Fried’s
Google accounts. Williams added that the accused and his legal team have had access to the evidence for
months. </p><p>“The
defendant’s representations are distorted to the point of being misleading,”
William stated in the letter. “The 4 million pages referenced in the defendant’s August 25,
2023 letter are materials that the government obtained from Google in response
to a search warrant for the defendant’s own Google accounts.”</p><p>To buttress
this point, Williams alleged that Bankman-Fried <a href="https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/us-doj-accuses-ftx-founder-of-leaking-caroline-ellisons-private-diary/" target="_blank" rel="follow">shared details from the Google
accounts</a> with The New York Times when he exposed personal details about
Caroline Elision, his former romantic partners and the ex-CEO of FTX’s sister
trading firm, Alameda Research. In addition, the attorney claimed that the 3.7 million pages of evidence
claimed to have been produced by the prosecuting team “constitutes a
duplicative subset of prior productions." This means that Bankman-Fried's legal team “is literally double counting to inflate the amount of discovery the Government
has produced," Williams added.</p><p>“[Sam
Bankman-Fried] cannot plausibly claim to be prejudiced by the Government’s
production of these materials, as he had months prior to being detained to mine
them for materials relevant to his defence,” the US Attorney commented. </p><p>Bankman-Fried Challenges Jail Decision</p><p><a href="https://www.financemagnates.com/" target="_blank" rel="follow">Finance
Magnates</a> reported that Judge Kaplan earlier this month ordered Bankman-Fried to be <a href="https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/sam-bankman-fried-lands-in-jail-ahead-of-criminal-trial/" target="_blank" rel="follow">jailed ahead of his
trial</a>. The decision came after the judge agreed with prosecutors that the Founder of FTX attempted to tamper with witnesses on two separate occasions in the case, including by <a href="https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/us-doj-accuses-ftx-founder-of-leaking-caroline-ellisons-private-diary/" target="_blank" rel="follow">sharing Elison’s
details</a> with The
New York Times.</p><p>Bankman’s
lawyers have argued that the imprisonment of the former crypto billionaire is
stalling his trial reparation. This week, they <a href="https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/bankman-fried-appeals-judges-jail-decision-as-october-trial-looms/" target="_blank" rel="follow">sought the 'temporary'
release</a> of the
defendant. At the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals, they are <a href="https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/bankman-fried-appeals-judges-jail-decision-as-october-trial-looms/" target="_blank" rel="follow">challenging the court's decision</a> to jail
Bankman-Fried ahead of his trial scheduled for October 3.</p><p>Meanwhile, last week the accused <a href="https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/sam-bankman-fried-pleads-not-guilty-to-new-indictment/" target="_blank" rel="follow">pleaded not guilty</a> in response to a revised
indictment that includes seven counts of charges. The disgraced entrepreneur
has been charged with fraud and money laundering, among other crimes, in connection to <a href="https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/troubled-ftx-files-for-bankruptcy-as-ceo-bankman-fried-resigns/" target="_blank" rel="follow">the downfall of his once-flourishing cryptocurrency business</a>.</p><p>New Match-Trader head; TradingView charts on MultiHODL; <a href="https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/news-nuggets-29-august-new-match-trader-head-tradingview-charts-on-multihodl/" target="_blank" rel="follow">read today's news nuggets</a>.</p>

This article was written by Solomon Oladipupo at www.financemagnates.com.