A New York judge on Feb. 1 granted a request from the Department of Justice to block Sam Bankman-Fried from attempting to contact both current and former employees of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan also ruled that the block applies to current and former employees of FTX’s sister hedge fund, Alameda Research.
The judge’s decision came after federal prosecutors filed a letter (pdf) with the court on Friday asking for Bankman-Fried’s bail conditions to be updated, citing concerns over possible witness tampering.
In the court filing, Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, asked that the former FTX founder not be allowed to communicate with any current or former employees unless in the presence of counsel, and that he also be banned from encrypted messaging platforms like Signal….