As per the recent court filing, Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of the crypto exchange FTX, who is currently in prison, has been stopped from trying to gather information for his legal case.
Sam Bankman-Fried is affected by the rising amount of evidence against him, according to recent reports.
SBF’s lawyers previously stated, “The government cannot be allowed to dump millions of pages on the defense less than six weeks before trial.”
SBF is allowed to use an air-gapped laptop, that cannot connect to other devices, during specific hours on weekdays and weekends. On weekdays he is allowed to use it between 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., and on weekends he can use it from 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
SBF’s legal team reported that he is facing a disturbance due to prison staff. SBF’s lawyers are worried because he is not able to gather information for his case due to obstruction like slow internet and frequent disturbances caused by the prison environment.
One of the issues he has raised is that, sometimes prison staff asks him to return to his cell for a routine prisoner count. Due to this, it took up around 7.5 hours of his time over three days. However, he believes that on one of those days, he lost 50% of his time due to the roll-call process.
“The defendant was informed by MDC staff that he had to leave the legal visiting room at 2:30 p.m. and return to his unit for the prisoner count, which deprived him of approximately 4.5 hours of additional review time,” the filing noted.
SBF still has access to an internet-enabled laptop for at least two days each week in the cellblock at 500 Pearl Street. On September 1, 2023, the Government carried out three tests to measure the internet speed in the cellblock area where the defendant can use the laptop.
Also Read: Sam Bankman-Fried’s Attorney Pursues ‘Temporary Release’