Prosecutors want Sam Bankman-Fried sent to jail after witness-tampering allegations. Judge issues gag order

A federal judge issued a gag order on former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, restricting his ability to speak publicly about his case, after US prosecutors asked a federal judge to jail him over allegations of witness-tampering.

Prosecutors accused Bankman-Fried of leaking his former girlfriend and business partner's personal writings to the New York Times. They said last week that Bankman-Fried, 31, had attempted to discredit their star witness, Caroline Ellison, who is expected to testify against him at his trial in October.

In a hearing before US District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan on Wednesday, Assistant US Attorney Danielle Sassoon cited multiple instances of the FTX founder actively communicating with the media and alleges he was a source for multiple stories - part of an "ongoing campaign with the press that has now crossed a line," she said.

Sassoon cited the "defendant's history of obstruction in the form of setting auto deletion" in communications related to FTX and the use of a VPN to subvert monitoring.

The prosecution "placed too much trust in the defendant" and now believes it is "not possible to design a set of adequate release conditions" to ensure the safety of the community.

Bankman-Fried's lead attorney, Mark Cohen, suggested the defense hadn't been given sufficient lead time from prosecutors regarding the request to jail him, saying the defense found out about the change "one minute before court."

Cohen also noted the unusually large volume of discovery documents - 32 million pages so far, he said. "This is a complex case involving complex financial transactions," making it "almost impossible to work with our client if he were remanded," he said.