FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried could be stuck with a dumb phone for the foreseeable future. In a letter seen by Bloomberg on Friday, prosecutors involved in his criminal case said that Bankman-Fried’s attorneys agreed to amend the terms of his bail agreement. Provided the judge overseeing the case approves the changes, SBF will be limited to using a “non-smartphone” without an internet connection. Unless an attorney is present, he is also prohibited from contacting current or former employees of FTX and Alameda Research. Additionally, SBF cannot use encrypted messaging apps, including Signal.
The proposed restrictions come after Bankman-Fried reportedly tried to contact the general counsel of FTX’s US subsidiary earlier this year about Signal. “I’d really like to get in touch again and see if there’s a way for us to have a constructive relationship, use each other as resources if possible, or at least check things out with each other,” he said in one, according to the Justice Department News .
Earlier in the week, Nishad Singh, former technical director of FTX, pleaded guilty to federal fraud and conspiracy charges. Singh is the third in Bankman-Fried’s inner circle to cooperate with prosecutors in the case against him. Late last year, Caroline Ellison, former CEO of Alameda Research, and Zixiao “Gary” Wang, co-founder of FTX, pleaded guilty to fraud allegations and said they would cooperate with investigators.
According to Bloomberg, District Judge Lewis Kaplan threatened to vacate Bankman-Fried’s bail and send him to jail before his trial begins after learning that the disgraced businessman may have influenced potential witnesses. Last month Kaplan Bankman-Fried also banned the use of a virtual private network (VPN) after his lawyers said he used one to watch a football game. According to Portal, Kaplan said he didn’t want SBF to “roam free in this garden of electronic devices.”
Under the modified bail agreement, SBF would be allowed to use a laptop to surf the web, but its access would be filtered through a VPN that would restrict it to two categories of websites. One category would include resources that his defense team says are critical to his case. The other contains a list of 23 websites where SBF could order food, read the news and watch streaming content. No word yet on whether the proposed restrictions would prevent him from playing League of Legends.
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