- Sam Bankman-Fried's lawyers say his leak of Caroline Ellison's diary entries to the New York Times is OK.
- He was simply defending his side of the story, they wrote in a court filing.
It's totally fine for Sam Bankman-Fried to give his ex-girlfriend's diary entries to a New York Times reporter, his lawyers said in a court filing.
On Thursday, the New York Times published a story featuring snippets from a journal kept by Caroline Ellison, a likely witness in the October criminal trial against Bankman-Fried and his ex.
Prosecutors correctly surmised that the entries were provided to the Times by Bankman-Fried, who had access to the writings, which were kept on Google Docs. In their own court filing, they accused Bankman-Fried of trying to discredit a witness in the case, intimidating other witnesses by implicitly threatening to leak their secrets, and potentially tainting the jury pool.
Bankman-Fried's lawyers fired back in a Sunday court filing, saying he was just telling his side of the story.
"The Government has taken a set of circumstances where nothing improper or impermissible occurred and has unfairly recast the events as a nefarious attempt by Mr. Bankman-Fried to 'discredit' Caroline Ellison and 'taint' the jury pool," his lawyers wrote. "But Mr. Bankman-Fried did nothing wrong."
Prosecutors allege Bankman-Fried defrauded customers of FTX, his now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange, in part by commingling funds with Alameda Research, a hedge fund he also controlled.
Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, pleaded guilty to her role in the scheme and is cooperating with prosecutors. She's expected to testify against Bankman-Fried, who pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Bankman-Fried's lawyers said the Times journalist contacted him about a story that was already in process.
"The reporter contacted Mr. Bankman-Fried about a story he was working on concerning Ms. Ellison and asked Mr. Bankman-Fried if he wished to respond," they wrote. "Mr. Bankman-Fried ultimately agreed to speak to the reporter and invited him for a visit at his parents' home pursuant to the procedures outlined in the bail conditions imposed by this Court."
Following the Times story, prosecutors said they wanted US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who's overseeing the case, to issue a gag order limiting what Bankman-Fried is allowed to say ahead of the trial. A proposed order, filed to court Monday, would prohibit him and any representatives "from publicly disseminating or discussing with any public communications media anything about the case which could interfere with a fair trial."
In their Sunday letter, Bankman-Fried's lawyers said they would accept a gag order, but asked that the judge issue one as well to John Ray III, the executive who took over FTX during bankruptcy proceedings and has frequently criticized Bankman-Fried.
"The Government has stood silent as John Ray has routinely made disparaging statements in the FTX bankruptcy proceedings and in other public comments discrediting Mr. Bankman-Fried," they wrote.
The lawyers also noted that the Times story made Bankman-Fried look bad, anyway.
"The story ran on Thursday," they wrote. "Overall, it was favorable to Ms. Ellison and negative towards Mr. Bankman-Fried."