Disgraced cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried has been detained in a Brooklyn jail notorious for its ‘inhuman’ conditions.
The former CEO of crypto exchange FTX had his bail revoked on Friday after a judge found there was considerable evidence he committed witness tampering.
Federal prosecutors pushed to revoke Bankman-Fried’s $250million bail after he reportedly leaked the private letters of Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research and his ex-girlfriend, who is now serving as a cooperating witness for the government.
‘There is no condition or combination of conditions of release that will assure that the defendant will not pose a danger to other persons or the safety of the community,’ District Judge Lewis Kaplan said in an order on Friday.
Bankman-Fried was remanded into the custody of the US Marshals and ordered to report to the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.
The MDC is notorious for its poor conditions.
In 2019, New York City public defenders filed a lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons, calling the conditions ‘inhumane’ after prisoners went without heat for days in the dead of winter.
Bankman-Fried’s lawyers had originally asked Judge Kaplan to detain him at a minimum security facility in upstate New York.
The MDC is also notable for once housing Ghislaine Maxwell, the former madam of financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
While at the jail, Maxwell’s attorneys filed numerous complaints on her behalf due to the jail’s conditoins.
According to one complaint, ‘raw sewage permeated Ms. Maxwell’s isolation cell,’ forcing guards to move her to a different cell.
Another complaint noted ‘vermin droppings fell from air vents.’
They also complained about ‘hyper-surveillance’ from guards, who would reportedly wake her up to check on her every 15 minutes.
After she was found guilty in December 2021, Maxwell has since been serving her prison term at a low security facility in Tallahassee, Florida.
Today, the MDC is currently holding Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former President of Honduras, who is awaiting trial on charges of cocaine and arms smuggling.
Bankman-Fried was arrested at his massive Bahamas mansion in December 2022. Before he was extradited to the united states, he was briefly held at the island nation’s notorious Fox Hill Prison.
The US State Department considers Fox Hill Prison to be cruel, inhumane, and ‘chronically overcrowded,’ according to a 2021 human rights report.
‘Maximum-security cells for men measured approximately six feet by 10 feet and held up to six persons with no mattresses or toilet facilities,’ the report reads. ‘Inmates removed human waste by bucket.
The report also noted a frequent lack of bedding, as well as infestations of ‘rats, maggots, and insects.’
While out on bail, Bankman-Fried was living at his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California.
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