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Throughout his felony trial slated to start out subsequent week, FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried received’t have the ability to inform the jury about his charitable works or the time he spent behind bars since his bail was revoked, in line with a choose’s order on Tuesday.
Addressing a collection of motions from federal prosecutors and the previous crypto mogul’s counsel, Decide Lewis Kaplan successfully drew boundary strains for Bankman-Fried’s six-week shot at retribution following the collapse of FTX final 12 months.
Bankman-Fried faces seven fraud and conspiracy expenses, to which he has pleaded not responsible. They’re the results of allegations that he and FTX’s high executives misappropriated billions of {dollars} of buyer funds earlier than the change went stomach up.
Earlier than his sprawling crypto empire crumbled, Bankman-Fried championed a motion dubbed Efficient Altruism. It basically referred to as on believers to offer away their cash to charitable causes in an environment friendly, evidence-based method.
Whereas charitable funds that starred supermodel Gisele Bundchen had been as soon as key to crafting a optimistic public picture for Bankman-Fried, Decide Kaplan precluded “any alleged prior good acts by the defendant, together with any charity or philanthropy, as indicative of his character or his guilt or innocence.”
When it comes to what federal prosecutors can convey up at trial, Decide Kaplan gave them the inexperienced mild to speak about matters that embody an “alleged scheme to bribe a Chinese language authorities official” for the discharge of frozen funds and FTX’s change token FTT.
Decide Kaplan defined that proof associated to the alleged bribery scheme is admissible, insofar because it pertains to how Bankman-Fried developed an alleged “unlawful relationship” with former Alameda Analysis CEO Caroline Ellison.
Ellison, one in every of a number of former executives who has pleaded responsible in relation to FTX’s collapse, is anticipated to testify at trial. A one-time lover of Bankman-Fried, snippets of her private writings landed Bankman-Fried again in jail after he reportedly gave them to the New York Occasions—a transfer that sparked witness tampering considerations.
Federal prosecutors had been additionally given permission to speak about how automated deletion insurance policies at FTX—which commonly erased enterprise communications—converse to an “obvious try and suppress proof of the crime.”
Decide Kaplan additionally sided with federal prosecutors in precluding proof associated to Bankman-Fried’s “household background, well being, age, pretrial detention, or another related components,” discovering that such issues usually are not related to the crimes he’s charged with.
The leisure drug use of witnesses is one space the place Decide Kaplan didn’t align with federal prosecutors. He mentioned the subject warrants dialogue at trial, counter to their movement, with a caveat that Bankman-Fried’s legal professionals notify the courtroom and authorities earlier than the subject is introduced up.
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