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Sam Bankman-Fried’s lawyers made a last-ditch bid Wednesday to get him released from jail — claiming a myriad of tech issues are preventing the accused fraudster from prepping for his upcoming trial from behind bars.
The shaggy-haired cryptocurrency mogul’s counsel griped that Bankman-Fried, 31, cannot review evidence in his case because he has yet to receive a court-ordered, internet-free laptop at Brooklyn’s troubled Metropolitan Detention Center, where he’s been held since Aug.11.
The former head of the collapsed crypto exchange FTX has been meeting with his lawyers at the Manhattan federal courthouse ahead of his October trial, and the fourth-floor cell block where they gather does have internet — but the connection is spotty, his attorneys complained.
“We need him to be released temporarily so we can properly prepare for trial,” Bankman-Fried’s lawyer Mark Cohen claimed during an hour-long telephone hearing.
Judge Lewis Kaplan did not immediately rule on Bankman-Fried’s bid to be freed from the notorious federal jail that once housed Jeffrey Epstein gal pal Ghislaine Maxwell and convicted Nxivm sex cult leader Keith Raniere.
But Kaplan ripped the the disgraced crypto bigwig’s lawyers for making “misleading” claims that the government has not turned over records in the case quick enough.
“No one, least of all the government, disputes that it would have been preferable if the documents were produced earlier, but the accusations or broken promises and missed deadlines are not at all accurate,” the fed-up judge said.
After some logistical mixups with jail officials, Bankman-Fried’s “air-gapped” laptop — outfitted with just Microsoft Excel, Powerpoint, and an Adobe file-review platform — arrived at the MDC Wednesday morning, federal prosecutor Danielle Kudla said during the hearing.
The feds say that Bankman-Fried can also access the internet in the 500 Pearl Street cell block where he can meet with his lawyers twice a week to prep for trial on charges he stole billions of customer funds held in the since-folded FTX to stem losses at a crypto-focused hedge fund, Alameda Research, that he also owned.
But Bankman-Fried’s lawyers claimed Wednesday that the laptop he can use at the courthouse has just one hour of battery life and that the internet — which prosecutors admitted is “not 5G” — goes in and out.
Court officers with the US Marshals Service have also refused to give Bankman-Fried an extension cord to charge the computer, citing concerns about it being used as a weapon, his lawyers said.
“While these solutions may appear as if they are solutions, they do not pan out in practice,” Cohen told the court.
The tech gripes are just the latest in a laundry list of complaints that Bankman-Fried’s lawyers have made since Kaplan revoked their client’s $250 million bail earlier this month and ordered him held in custody following accusations that he leaked the personal diary of his former lover and business associate Caroline Ellison to a reporter.
The attorneys have also claimed that jail officials are withholding his ADHD medication and that the cryptocurrency magnate, a vegan, has been “subsisting on bread and water” behind bars because the jail does not have plant-based dining options.
Kaplan has found that there was probable cause to believe Bankman-Fried had tried to tamper with witnesses at least twice since his January arrest.
Ellison is one of several members of Bankman-Fried’s inner circle expected to testify against him at a blockbuster, five-week trial.
The judge ordered both sides to give an update on Tuesday on Bankman-Fried’s efforts to access records in his case.
Additional reporting by Priscilla DeGregory
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