An attorney for FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried said in federal court Tuesday his client has to subsist on bread, water and peanut butter because the jail he’s in isn’t accommodating his vegan diet.
Bankman-Fried, 31, the former billionaire and co-founder of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, appeared in Manhattan federal court where he pleaded not guilty to seven counts. A superseding indictment charged him with wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering that defrauded customers of FTX and lenders to his cryptocurrency hedge fund, Alameda Research.
Defense attorney Mark Cohen said that Bankman-Fried is not getting his prescribed Adderall, which helps him focus, and he is not getting a vegan diet, so he has had to subsist on bread and water with some peanut butter.
Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn said she doesn’t think the prison can offer vegan, only vegetarian, and she said she would look into the situation right away. Bankman-Fried is currently held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
Also in court Tuesday, a second attorney for Bankman-Fried, Christian Everdell, said there are serious sixth amendment issues that need to be addressed because Bankman-Fried has no way to prepare and participate in his defense. Everdell said he has had no access to discovery materials for 11 days and there is only six weeks left to the start of the trial.
Everdell said suggestions from prosecutors to alleviate the problem have been fiction, including suggesting that he move to a facility in Putnam and come to a cell block at the federal courthouse in Manhattan and work behind a glass partition. When Judge Netburn suggested using a proffer room, she was told by prosecutors that trial Judge Lewis Kaplan had already ruled against any changes in the current set up.
Since his arrest in December, Bankman-Fried had been out on a $250 million bail package which requires him to remain at his parents’ house in Palo Alto, California.
But earlier this month, Bankman-Fried was remanded to jail over alleged witness tampering. His criminal trial is set to begin Oct. 2. On Aug. 11, Judge Lewis Kaplan denied Bankman-Fried’s request for delayed detention pending an appeal.
In the motion requesting Bankman-Fried’s detention, the government said that over the last several months, the defendant had sent over 100 emails to the media and had made over 1,000 phone calls to members of the press. The final straw, according to prosecutors, was Bankman-Fried leaking private diary entries of his ex-girlfriend, Caroline Ellison, to the New York Times. Ellison pleaded guilty to federal charges in Dec. 2022.
Ellison, who is also the former chief executive of Bankman-Fried’s failed Alameda Research, has been cooperating with the government since December and is expected to be a star witness for the prosecution.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
