Counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice has suggested in court documents filed late Friday that Sam Bankman- Fried's bail terms limit his access to the internet, including the use of a flip phone without an internet connection.
The request was made to District Judge Lewis Kaplan in the Southern District of New York following allegations that the founder of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX attempted to get in touch with witnesses while out on bail for charges including wire fraud and money laundering, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
In a document that claimed to be made "on behalf of the parties," U.S. Attorney Damian Williams stated that Bankman- Fried's laptop would only be allowed to access a whitelist of authorized websites, including news, sports, Wikipedia, and the US government. This suggests that the former FTX executive's defense attorney had approved the restrictions.
According to the document, Bankman- Fried's parents would need to sign affidavits verifying the internet-connected gadgets they already have at home and reaffirming that they would not add any more or set up surveillance software. They would also need to guarantee that Bankman-Fried could not access their technology.
Once it was discovered that Bankman-Fried had used a VPN, the government tried to tighten the terms of his release, and at an earlier hearing, Kaplan expressed skepticism about assertions that he had just used the internet anonymity tool to watch football.
