Federal Attorneys Trash Sam Bankman-Fried After New York Times Article

Federal prosecutors have written a letter to a judge condemning Sam Bankman-Fried, saying he is harassing his co-defendant and ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison by talking with The New York Times for an article published by the newspaper on Thursday. U.S. attorneys describe them as “extrajudicial statements” and an “attempt to interfere with a fair trial by impartial jury,” saying the article, headlined “Inside the Private Writings of Caroline Ellison, Star Witness in the FTX Case,” has the potential to “taint the jury pool, and could have a chilling effect on witnesses.” The letter, first reported by Politico’s Josh Gerstein, asks U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan to introduce an order “that limits extrajudicial statements by parties and witnesses likely to interfere with a fair trial by an impartial jury.” While the Times article does not name its source, the prosecutors say “it is apparent” that it was Bankman-Fried. They say his attorney confirmed that he “had met with one of the Article’s authors in person and had shared documents with him that were not part of the Government’s discovery material.” That material likely came from Bankman-Fried’s personal Google Drive account, the prosecutors say, adding it appeared Bankman-Fried’s attorneys were unaware of what he was doing at the time. “In addition to tainting the jury pool, the effect, if not the intent, of the defendant’s conduct is not only to harass Ellison, but also to deter other potential witnesses from testifying,” they add.