U.S. Attorney Damian Williams of the Southern District of New York (SDNY) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are seeking a “fix” on the bail conditions for former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. SDNY prosecutors are asking the court to prohibit Bankman-Fried from using a smartphone connected to the Internet. In exchange, the disgraced FTX co-founder will receive a government-issued flip phone with internet capabilities disabled.
Bankman-Fried May Get Flip Phone With Strings Attached
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On March 3, 2023, the DOJ and SDNY attorney Damian Williams filed arequestbefore Judge Lewis Kaplan to modify the bail conditions for Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), former CEO of FTX. The prosecution seeks to restrict SBF’s access to the Internet through a variety of devices, including smartphones, tablets, computers, and video game consoles capable of chatting and making voice calls. The proposed restrictions would prohibit SBF from using any smart device with Internet capabilities.
The government also wants the temporary measures added to SBF’s bail conditions to be fully adopted. These measures include not communicating with FTX or Alameda Research employees without an attorney present, not using encrypted messengers such as Signal, and prohibiting the use of VPNs SBF is prohibited from using serial numbers maintained by the DOJ, IMEI number, IMSI number, MAC address, and SIM number, and will receive a government-issued flip phone. This flip phone is capable of SMS text messaging and voice calls.
“With respect to Defendant’s computer use, the parties have configured Defendant’s new laptop to log on to the Internet only through the use of a specific VPN, and the VPN will only allow Defendant to access whitelisted websites through the VPN The court proposed to do the following.” The court filing submitted by the SDNY attorneys detailed the details.” Specifically, a legitimate VPN installed on a laptop would allow Defendants to access the cloud-hosted FTX read-only database provided as part of discovery.”
In addition, federal prosecutors want to install surveillance software on SBF’s computers to record their activities. If Kaplan approves, SBF would have to turn over the electronic equipment for investigation by pretrial services. The former FTX CEO would also be prohibited from purchasing new cell phones, tablets, computers, and other electronic devices that can connect to the Internet. Prior to the DOJ’s request, SBF was known to play online video games and use Twitter, and recently created the Substack blog to explain his side of the story.
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