General Category > Crime And Punishment

Judge Yanks FTX Founder and Democrat Super Donor Sam Bankman-Fried Back into Court over Internet Usa

(1/1)

mountaineer:
Judge Yanks FTX Founder and Democrat Super Donor Sam Bankman-Fried Back into Court over Internet Usage
Lucas Nolan
15 Feb 2023

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has reportedly been pulled back to court over his recent use of a VPN to conceal his internet activity, potentially violating court orders. SBF’s lawyers claim he only used the encrypted internet connection to watch NFL games including the Super Bowl.

CNN reports that Judge Lewis Kaplan has summoned disgraced FTX founder and Democrat super donor Sam Bankman-Fried back to court after it was discovered that he had used a virtual private network (VPN), which conceals online activity from outside parties, including the government. The judge was concerned about Bankman-Fried’s use of encryption and whether or not the government could monitor his activities while he is out on bail.  ...

Attorneys for Bankman-Fried claim that their client accessed an NFL Game Pass international subscription through a VPN to watch NFL playoff and Super Bowl games while on bail in the U.S. using a subscription purchased while residing in the Bahamas.

According to prosecutors, there are several potential issues with the use of VPNs. First and foremost, it is an encryption mechanism that shields online activities from prying eyes, including investigators determining what happened with billions of dollars missing from FTX. Second, it is a way to hide a user’s location online — according to prosecutors, some people use VPNs to hide the fact that they are connecting to foreign cryptocurrency exchanges that use IP addresses to block U.S. users.  ...

Breitbart

mountaineer:
Sam Bankman-Fried is in Judge Kaplan's courtroom, 8 minutes early, rubbing the outside of his nose.

Judge Kaplan: Mr. Roos, are you going to do the honors of starting this afternoon?

AUSA: Yes. With the discovery of the defendant's use of a VPN, we propose to broaden the conditions. The case involves a business that was reliant on the Internet. Defendant was using auto-delete on Signal, and de-emphasizing e-mail. There are still wallets out there. In this case, in at least 2 instance, funds have moved that belonged to the estate or debtor. In January, several Alameda wallets were accessed. There was been witness tampering and obstruction of justice. Now there's use of a VPN. We have to move beyond the wackamole approach. We need a clear rule about defendant's use of devices and the Internet.

Judge Kaplan: You're putting a lot of trust in him.

AUSA Roos: We are mindful of defendant's First Amendment rights --

Judge Kaplan: Are you claiming there is a Constitutional right, once charged, to access the Internet?

AUSA Roos: We are proposing restrictions.

Judge Kaplan: Detained defendant still prepare their defense without the Internet. What is unique about this defendant?

AUSA Roos: OK, what about access to discovery?

Judge Kaplan: Let's get into that. Where is the database?

Judge Kaplan: You could show him the database on a device without the ability of communication.

AUSA Roos: The FTX debtor is concerned about turning over a database like this --

Judge Kaplan: A duplicate could be created. Let's get on.

AUSA Roos: We proposed pen registers and computer monitoring that Pre-Trial Services has, for laptops and cell phones.  I haven't had that conversation. It would be a suitcase sized server iIn the Cloud. It's read-only.  ...

SBF's lawyer Cohen: Our client couldn't use Google Docs, or Microsoft Word or computational programs, could not Zoom with witnesses
[Note: Avi Eisenberg, detained at demand of this same US Attorney's Office, can't do any of those things. No talk of First Amendment]  ...

More:
--- End quote ---

https://twitter.com/innercitypress/status/1626314582422614020

mountaineer:
Sam Bankman-Fried paid over $40 million to bribe at least one Chinese official, DOJ alleges in new indictment
Published Tue, Mar 28 2023
 9:42 AM EDT Updated 3 Min Ago
MacKenzie Sigalos and Rohan Goswami
--- Quote ---FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried paid out tens of millions of dollars worth of bribes to at least one Chinese government official, federal prosecutors alleged in a new indictment Tuesday.

The federal government alleges that accounts belonging to Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund, Alameda Research, were the target of a freezing order from Chinese police “in or around” Nov. 2021. The indictment also alleges that Bankman-Fried and others “directed and caused the transfer” of at least $40 million in cryptocurrency “intended for the benefit of one or more Chinese government officials in order to influence and induce them” to unfreeze some of these accounts.

The charges indicate that new evidence has been obtained by the federal government about Bankman-Fried’s international dealings, and it comes one day after U.S. regulators slapped crypto exchange Binance with allegations of facilitating terrorist financing and violations of U.S. derivatives law. ...
--- End quote ---
CNBC

Did the Chinese give The Big Guy a cut of the receipts?

DefiantMassRINO:
I'm sure this is not the first nor the only time business paid bribes to Chinese officials.  It's pay-for-play over there.

Navigation

[0] Message Index