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(Kitco News) -
The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) filed a new complaint against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) on Thursday, accusing him of leaking the private diary of former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison in an effort to discredit her as a witness.
In a new court filing submitted by U.S. Attorney Damian Williams on July 20, the DoJ accused Bankman-Fried of sharing Ellison’s journal and other personal writings with a New York Times reporter for an article published on Thursday, characterizing the leak as an “attempt to interfere with a fair trial by an impartial jury.”
Ellison became a government witness in December, and she had a tumultuous partnership with SBF spanning several years that was both romantic and professional.
“On July 20, 2023, the New York Times published an article with the headline, Inside the Private Writings of Caroline Ellison, Star Witness in the FTX Case (the ‘Article’),” Williams wrote. “The article quoted ‘documents . . . [that] “offer new insight into Ms. Ellison’s psychology during the final months of FTX,’ and described the writings as ‘personal and raw.’ As described in the Article, in these writings, among other things, Ellison describes feeling overwhelmed by her job at Alameda, the pain associated with her romantic break up with the defendant, and her professional insecurities.”
While the article did not name the source who gave the reporter Ellison’s diary, Williams said that “[i]t is apparent that documents were shared” by Bankman-Fried. “When the Government learned this week that this Article was forthcoming, defense counsel confirmed that the defendant had met with one of the Article’s authors in person and had shared documents with him that were not part of the Government’s discovery material,” Williams said. “Based on the excerpts in the Article, the documents do not appear to be within the discovery materials in the case, but likely came from the defendant’s personal Google Drive account.”
Williams said that SBF’s intentions in sharing these private materials is clear. “Ellison has pleaded guilty to a cooperation agreement and is expected to testify at trial that she agreed with the defendant to defraud FTX’s customers and investors, and Alameda’s lenders,” he wrote. “By selectively sharing certain private documents with the New York Times, the defendant is attempting to discredit a witness, cast Ellison in a poor light, and advance his defense through the press and outside the constraints of the courtroom and rules of evidence: that Ellison was a jilted lover who perpetrated these crimes alone.”
Williams said that the government believes “the overwhelming evidence” will prove this defense to be false, “it is prejudicial and improper for the defendant to malign Ellison’s credibility in advance of trial, particularly with materials that the defense has not established are admissible at trial, much less produced to the Government.”
The article excerpts Ellison’s writings where she admits to feeling overwhelmed by her leadership role at Alameda Research, and describes the pain and frustration she felt from her fights and break-ups with Bankman-Fried while continuing to live and work closely with him.
Williams described as “particularly pernicious” Bankman-Fried’s decision to use the New York Times to publicize the information. “Having the story appear in a reputable newspaper with a worldwide readership without identifying the defendant as the source lends a misleading patina of legitimacy to what would otherwise be naked advocacy, compounding the risk of tainting prospective jurors,” he wrote. “In addition to tainting the jury pool, the effect, if not the intent, of the defendant’s conduct is not only to harass Ellison, but also to deter other potential trial witnesses from testifying.”
The complaint asserts that the government “is particularly attuned to these concerns after the defendant’s improper outreach to a potential witness resulted in the modification of his bail conditions,” referring to SBF’s attempts to communicate with Ryne Miller, General Counsel of FTX US, through both email and Signal on Jan. 15.
“That the defendant was nonetheless undeterred from taking steps that likewise might affect—albeit indirectly—the putative testimony of trial witnesses is all the more reason why the Government’s proposed relief is the least restrictive alternative for ensuring a fair trial.”
The DoJ is requesting that Judge Kaplan issue an order “that limits extrajudicial statements by parties and witnesses likely to interfere with a fair trial by an impartial jury.”
Bankman-Fried’s trial on the initial set of criminal charges is scheduled to begin on Oct. 2, 2023.
