Sam Bankman-Fried offered the names of two technology consultants to help the judge on his criminal fraud case determine appropriate bail restrictions for the FTX co-founder.
(Bloomberg) — Sam Bankman-Fried offered the names of two technology consultants to help the judge on his criminal fraud case determine appropriate bail restrictions for the FTX co-founder.
Edward Stroz was an FBI agent for more than 15 years and spent another two decades managing an international firm specializing in digital forensics and computer investigations, according to a resume that Bankman-Fried submitted to the Manhattan judge late Wednesday.
Michael McGowan, a digital forensics consultant for more than 19 years, has led technical analysis on several high-profile matters including authenticating baseball player Alex Rodriguez’s text messages in arbitration over his alleged use of performance enhancing drugs, according to his resume. He also established that a man who sued Mark Zuckerberg for half his shares of Facebook had forged the contract on which the suit was based.
Read More: Bankman-Fried Judge Threatens Jail Over Use of Apps, VPNs
Bankman-Fried, who has pleaded not guilty to fraud charges over the collapse of FTX, is free on a $250 million bond while confined to his parents’ house with a monitoring device around his ankle. He’s been in a tense standoff with US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who was angry over his use of encrypted-messaging apps and a virtual private network, or VPN, which hides a computer user’s IP address.
Kaplan gave Bankman-Fried a deadline of Friday to recommend a technical consultant to advise the judge on an appropriate raft of restrictions that balances the defendant’s rights and needs with the integrity of the judicial process. The judge has threatened to revoke Bankman-Fried’s bail package altogether and send him to jail ahead of his October trial if he isn’t satisfied with the restrictions.Â
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