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- FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried had his bail revoked on Friday over alleged witness-tampering.
- Bankman-Fried was previously released on $250 million bond in December.
- The onetime crypto whiz will now spend the time before his October trial in jail in New York.
Sam Bankman-Fried was sent to jail Friday after a federal judge revoked his bail — convinced that he had repeatedly tried to influence witnesses against him.
US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said Bankman-Fried could no longer be held under house arrest at his parent's home. The onetime crypto whiz co-founded fallen crypto firm FTX, which is now reorganizing without SBF at the helm.
Kaplan ordered Bankman-Fried's bail revoked after prosecutors said he'd tried to harass a key witness in his fraud case last month when SBF showed a journalist his onetime girlfriend Caroline Ellison's private writings, and in January when he contacted the general counsel for FTX with an encrypted communication.
Prosecutors maintained he was trying to sully her reputation and influence prospective jurors who might be summoned for his October trial.
His lawyers insisted he shouldn't be jailed for trying to protect his reputation against a barrage of unfavorable news stories. But Kaplan said he had concluded there was probable cause to believe Bankman-Fried had tried to "tamper with witnesses at least twice" since his December arrest.
"Nonviolent witness tampering and obstruction poses a danger to the community and the risk of such activities would support pretrial detention," Judge Kaplan said at a hearing on Friday, according to Courthouse News' Josh Russell.
A defense lawyer said an appeal of the incarceration order would be filed and asked for an immediate stay of the order.
The revocation of Bankman-Fried's bail comes months after the 31-year-old known as SBF was put under house arrest at his parent's house in Palo Alto, California, since December on charges ofillegally funneling millions of dollars from FTX customers' funds into his cryptocurrency trading firm, Alameda.
Bankman-Fried's $250 billion bail package restricted him from using his phone and any gaming device that permitted "chat or voice communication," which includes losing access to his favorite game "League of Legends."
Meanwhile, Caroline Ellison pleaded guilty in December to criminal charges carrying a potential penalty of 110 years in prison. She has agreed to testify against Bankman-Fried as part of a deal that could lead to a more lenient sentence.