NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge showed growing impatience Thursday with FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s use of the internet while on bail, suggesting that incarceration might eventually be the most effective way to prevent him from communicating on electronic devices in ways that can’t be traced.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan did not immediately change a $250 million bail package that lets Bankman-Fried live with his parents in Palo Alto, California, while preparing for trial on charges that he cheated investors and looted customer deposits at FTX, his cryptocurrency trading platform.
But he raised the possibility for the first time that jail might be the only way to ensure Bankman-Fried won’t outfox the government with ways to use electronic devices in ways that can’t be tracked.
“There is a solution, but it’s not one anybody’s proposed yet,” Kaplan said as Bankman-Fried sat passively at the defense table. He then noted that there may be many devices in Bankman-Fried’s family home that the government will not be tracking, even with any new rules imposed on his bail conditions.
“Why am I being asked to set him loose in this garden of electronic devices?” he asked prosecutors.