Sam Bankman-Fried attorneys say they are ‘unable to adequately prepare’ for trial

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s legal team told the federal judge overseeing his case that they are “unable to adequately prepare” for his trial.

In a letter addressed to U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, the lawyers argued that the government did not provide their client with regular and reliable access to the discovery, didn’t provide adequate internet access and did not provide him with the “ability of counsel to consult with and discuss the defense” with their client.

His attorneys claimed officials violated Bankman-Fried’s Sixth Amendment rights, arguing that the government is “pretending that his current circumstances are not interfering with his right to counsel.”

“The path the Government has chosen to take inevitably leads to inadequate representation which cannot be remedied as long as Mr. Bankman-Fried is incarcerated without internet access,” according to the letter. “There are millions of pages of documents, many of which have only recently been produced. The defendant is being wrongly deprived of his right to counsel and this violation must be remedied.”

His legal team is asking for the court to allow Bankman-Fried to be released in the custody of his parents “subject to severe constraints.”

“Nothing short of that will suffice,” his lawyers added.

Kaplan had revoked Bankman-Fried’s bail and sent him to jail earlier this month, claiming that there was probable cause to suggest he had attempted to “tamper with witnesses at least twice” since his December arrest. Before being sent to jail, he was previously under house arrest as he awaited trial over allegations that he defrauded his investors and unlawfully diverted millions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency from FTX customers.

In a superseding indictment filed earlier this month, the prosecutors also alleged that Bankman-Fried embezzled customer deposits to, among other accusations, “help fund over $100 million in campaign contributions to Democrats and Republicans to seek to influence cryptocurrency regulation.”