Convicted crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried was reportedly thrown in solitary confinement after taking an unauthorized jailhouse interview with Tucker Carlson this week.
Bankman-Fried appeared in a video name launched Thursday with the previous Fox Information host from Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Middle, the place he has been held for the final 18 months. The interview was his newest push in an obvious long-shot marketing campaign to obtain a presidential pardon for his 25-year sentence.
However after the video went dwell, Bankman-Fried was moved to solitary and a spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons mentioned “this explicit interview was not accredited,” The New York Occasions reported.
Inmate communications in federal prisons are closely regulated.
In 2023, the disgraced tech mogul was sentenced to 25 years in jail for fraud and conspiracy, stealing greater than $8 billion from prospects of his cryptocurrency change, FTX.
The 33-year-old has been attempting to plead his case for the reason that firm collapsed in 2022.
After FTX went bankrupt, Bankman-Fried devised a 19-point plan to revive his public picture, based on a memo launched by federal prosecutors. Quantity three on the record was: “Go on Tucker Carlsen [sic], come out as a republican [sic].” A part of that bullet was additionally, “Come out towards the woke agenda.”
Bankman-Fried, beforehand a significant donor to the Democratic get together, took the chance to attraction to Republicans on the present.
“In 2020, I used to be center-left, and I gave to Biden’s marketing campaign,” SBF informed Carlson. “I used to be optimistic he can be a center-left president.”
However he was “actually, actually shocked” by what he noticed in DC within the years that adopted. “Not in a great route,” he added.
Final month, SBF slammed the Biden administration for its “politicization” of the Justice Division in an interview with The New York Solar. He mentioned he discovered the “Republican get together was much more cheap” and praised Elon Musk, particular adviser to Trump and head of the brand new Division of Authorities Effectivity.
Bankman-Fried’s mother and father, each Stanford College legislation professors, and different supporters have reportedly been contacting sources near Washington to advocate for his clemency.
There was no indication they’ve reached Trump or his advisors, nonetheless, and the White Home has not commented on the hassle.
No official pardon request has been submitted on Bankman-Fried’s behalf, both.
He has maintained his innocence and filed an attraction in September, arguing that the choose who oversaw the case was biased and solely noticed “half the image.”
In Thursday’s interview, Bankman-Fried additionally revealed what it was like residing with “alleged ex-gangsters” and high-profile cellmates like Sean “Diddy” Combs.
“He’s been type to me,” Bankman-Fried mentioned of Combs. “It’s a place nobody desires to be in. Clearly he doesn’t, I don’t.”
“It’s form of a soul crushing place,” he added.
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