Sam Bankman-Fried Files Memo Asking Court to Block Prosecutor Evidence – Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO and founder of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX, submitted a memorandum on September 1st, urging the court to reject the in limine requests made by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). Mark Cohen, SBF’s attorney, authored the memorandum, characterizing the DOJ’s requests as “unfounded and overbroad” among other criticisms.
Cohen contends that many of the concerns raised by the government are inappropriate for consideration at this point in the legal proceedings. Additionally, the memorandum claims the requests “seek to admit irrelevant and prejudicial evidence regarding conduct that is no longer or never was charged, to undercut any potential defense, and to admit broad categories of hearsay and other improper evidence.”
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It goes on to argue that the requests from the prosecutor are “unsupported by law and unworkable” in practice and, therefore, shouldn’t be granted. This memorandum follows several recent submissions by the DOJ, where they requested the court’s involvement in different facets of the case. On August 28, the government submitted a motion seeking to prevent all of SBF’s expert witnesses from giving testimony in court.
The DOJ argued that all of the proposed experts, along with their accompanying disclosures, “suffer from an array of deficiencies,” warranting being banned from the trial. A day later, on Aug. 29, the prosecutor filed another motion that called SBF’s fraud allegation defense “irrelevant” in its current state and requested additional disclosures to the already planned defense.
In the meantime, attorneys representing SBF have been advocating for a temporary release, asserting that the facilities provided by the authorities do not adequately support his preparations for the upcoming October trial. Additionally, his legal team is actively pursuing an appeal against the court’s decision to revoke his bail, which was issued on August 11. The defense contends that the bail revocation was motivated by retaliation against his exercise of First Amendment rights.
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