Bankman-Fried returns to prison. He complains about the conditions
Cryptocurrency exchange founder and former billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried awaits trial. The court decided on Friday that his house arrest was not enough and ordered him to be re-incarcerated. According to the defenders of the former “king of cryptocurrencies”, the prison conditions are inhumane.
The trial of the fallen “king of cryptocurrencies” will begin on October 2. So far, Sam Bankman Fried has been placed under house arrest after posting a $250 million bail. On Friday, however, the court decided to reinstate the arrest. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan said there was probable reason to believe that Bankman-Fried was trying to “manipulate witnesses”.
“Inhuman Conditions”
Bankman-Fried is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. This is the facility where the Ghislaine Maxwell, former right-hand man of billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, sentenced to 20 years in prison for child abuse and human trafficking.
In 2021, attorney Maxwell wrote to the judge overseeing her case, saying that MDC “is infested with mold and vermin.”
“Cockroaches and rodents are everywhere and traces of glue have been placed in Ms Maxwell’s living area to help solve the problem,” reads the letter to the judge.
In 2019, when the power went out in the prison, the temperature in the cells dropped to zero. Prisoners tried to attract the attention of staff by banging on doors and bars. As revenge, the guards pepper sprayed them and closed the toilets. According to Bankman-Fried’s lawyers, the conditions in the prison are “inhumane”.
Cryptocurrency exchange collapsed
FTX filed for bankruptcy in November after CoinDesk reported that its sister trading company, Alameda Research, holds the exchange’s native FTT token as a significant part of its portfolio. Rival exchange Binance then announced that it would sell all of its token holdings, leading to customers starting withdrawing their funds from FTX.
FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas the following month and extradited to the United States where he faced eight counts of fraud.
