Sam Bankman-Fried Accused of Leaking Writings, Witness Tampering

Facts

• Federal prosecutors are accusing former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (commonly referred to as 'SBF') of leaking the personal writings of his former girlfriend and business partner, Caroline Ellison, to the New York Times in act of witness tampering by portraying her in an unfavorable light.¹
• In a letter to US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, the prosecutors say SBF gave the Times access to Ellison’s private writings for Thursday’s piece titled 'Inside the Private Writings of Caroline Ellison, Star Witness in the FTX Case.' They add that the documents weren’t part of the government’s discovery material.²
• Prosecutors also asked Judge Kaplan to prohibit trial participants from making statements that could influence the yet-to-be-selected jury that will rule on the fraud case in which SBF and other top executives are accused of defrauding FTX customers in a litany of financial crimes.³
• Ellison’s writings reveal her feelings of inadequacy while serving as CEO of Alameda Research — a crypto hedge fund and offshoot of FTX, and her breakup with Bankman-Fried. Earlier this year, Ellison agreed to testify at SBF as part of a deal to be granted a lighter sentence for her role in FTX.⁴
• Prosecutors say Bankman-Fried tried to portray Ellison as a jilted lover and that his actions are intended to intimidate witnesses. In February, prosecutors accused SBF of trying to influence a witness when he sent an encrypted message to a top FTX lawyer asking to connect.⁵
• New court filings also reveal that Sam’s brother Gabe Bankman-Fried, who served as a top lobbyist for FTX, wrote a memo about SBF’s plan to buy the sovereign island nation of Nauru to be safe from a potential global apocalypse. Nauru is famous for money laundering, and the memo mentioned its “sensible regulation around human genetic enhancement.'⁶

Sources: ¹CNN, ²Reuters, ³The Hill, ⁴WJXT, ⁵Associated Press and ⁶Guardian.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by The Daily Beast. Sam Bankman-Fried continues to show an untenable lack of judgment — including leaking the intimate and personal writings of Caroline Ellison to discredit her as a witness. These moves inflict emotional damage and, while Ellison may have been involved in FTX’s crimes, her misdeed pale in comparison to SBF's crimes.
• Narrative B, as provided by New York Post. Birds of a feather flock together, and Caroline Ellison seems just as wrapped up in the FTX fraud scandal as SBF. The truth is that neither of these individuals is a victim, and both co-orchestrated one of the largest financial fraud scandals in history.