Kenne Michael 
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried will remain in prison after a U.S. federal judge denied his plea for interim parole.
Bankman-Fried faces allegations of orchestrating a multibillion-dollar fraudulent scheme that led to FTX’s bankruptcy last November.
According to the prosecution, he utilized customer funds for activities such as trading at the crypto hedge fund Alameda Research, acquiring real estate, contributing to charitable causes, and making political contributions.
Bankman-Fried has entered a plea of not guilty in response to these charges.
Until August, he was placed under house arrest in California, but his bail was revoked due to allegations of attempting to tamper with witnesses.
Since then, concerns have arisen among his legal team regarding his ability to adequately prepare for his trial while incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
The defense requested that he be released from custody for five days a week to work on his case, but Judge Lewis Kaplan denied this request.
Instead, the judge recommended providing Bankman-Fried with case-related documents on a hard drive.
Furthermore, Bankman-Fried’s legal team submitted a list of potential jury questions to the federal court in Manhattan.
Some of these questions aimed to gauge prospective jurors’ opinions on cryptocurrency, political donations, and “effective altruism.”
Disputes persist between the prosecutors and the defense regarding Bankman-Fried’s access to essential materials for trial preparation.
In the recent ruling, Judge Kaplan attributed Bankman-Fried’s current situation to his prior request for pretrial release, which had initially been granted but was later revoked due to concerns of witness tampering.
As preparations for the trial continue, Bankman-Fried remains in custody, necessitating increased access to online databases and document-sharing tools, adding complexity to his defense strategy.
