Sam Bankman-Fried requests weekday freedom for legal defense work

Days after a federal judge revoked FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s bail, he now seeks permission to spend five weekdays outside the lockup to collaborate with his legal team on his defense case.

According to a letter sent to Judge Lewis Kaplan on Friday, as reported by Bloomberg, legal representatives for SBF stated that their client faced difficulties thoroughly reviewing the extensive document accumulation related to the case while confined to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Christian Everdell, attorney for SBF, stated:

“Just last week the government produced three-quarters of a million pages of Slack communications, which were supposed to be produced months ago, that Mr. Bankman-Fried will have no hope of reviewing under this schedule.”

According to Everdell, facilitating SBF’s access to his legal team and allowing him to use an internet-enabled laptop on courthouse premises would accelerate the proceedings. The lawyer emphasized the significance of this arrangement, given that his fraud trial is scheduled to start in October.

Maintaining his innocence, SBF faces allegations of masterminding an elaborate fraud scheme involving unauthorized access to billions of dollars from FTX customer funds for personal use.

Related: FTX seeks $175M settlement with Genesis entities to resolve dispute

Prosecutors reportedly argued that unless Bankman-Fried promptly provides information about the advice he received and its origin, he should be precluded from introducing this defense during the trial.

The prosecutors reportedly mentioned their ability to provide Bankman-Fried with information on hard drives.

However, due to limitations, not all the information can be stored on a laptop or drive. Prison authorities denied a plan to move SBF to allow him access to a laptop, and he still awaits a judge’s decision on his latest requests.

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