Sam Bankman-Fried’s Defense Lawyers Seek Delay in Fraud Trial

The criminal fraud trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is reportedly facing a potential delay.

Bankman-Fried’s defense lawyers have raised concerns about the limited time they have had to review the extensive evidence in the case, Reuters reported Wednesday (Aug. 30). U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan has expressed his willingness to consider a delay of up to five months to allow Bankman-Fried’s legal team to adequately prepare.

The founder of the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange has pleaded not guilty to charges of fraud and conspiracy related to the collapse of FTX in November 2022. He was jailed on Aug. 11 after the judge found that he may have tampered with witnesses while on bail. Bankman-Fried’s lawyers have requested that he be returned to his parents’ custody to ensure he can adequately prepare for the trial.

The defense team argues that Bankman-Fried has not been given enough time to review the millions of pages of evidence in the case, the report said. They claim that the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where Bankman-Fried is held, has not provided him with hard drives containing the evidence. Kaplan has stated that he is unlikely to delay the trial solely based on the volume of evidence and that the defense would need to demonstrate a genuine and unanticipated need for the delay.

One possibility suggested by the judge is to combine Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial with a previously scheduled trial on charges brought after his extradition from the Bahamas in December 2022, per the report. These charges include bank fraud and foreign bribery conspiracies. Bankman-Fried’s lawyer, Mark Cohen, has been advised to make any requests for a trial delay in the next few days.

In addition to the delay concerns, Bankman-Fried’s defense team has raised objections to the use of approximately 4 million pages of documents stored on Google that were turned over to the prosecutors, according to the report. They argue that their client has not been given sufficient time to sort through the documents, depriving him of his constitutional right to a fair trial. However, Kaplan rejected their request to bar the use of these documents, stating that there is no evidence that the government did not act in good faith.

The legal battle in which Bankman-Fried is engaged could see him spend the rest of his life behind bars.