SBF leaked diaries to harass Caroline Ellison and derail trial, lawsuit claims
Sam Bankman Fried (SBF) has been accused of leaking personal diaries written by his former girlfriend and Alamada chief Caroline Ellison in an effort to discredit her before she appears as the prosecution’s “star witness” in his upcoming fraud trial.
That’s according to state attornies in the SBF trial, who said SBF “sought to publicly discredit a government witness by sharing her personal writings with a reporter so that these private documents would be featured in a New York Times article.”
According to a court filing from Thursday, “In addition to tainting the jury pool, the effect, if not the intent, of the defendant’s conduct is not only to harass Ellison but also to deter other potential trial witnesses from testifying.”
As a result, the government is seeking to impose an “order that limits extrajudicial statements by parties and witnesses likely to interfere with a fair trial by an impartial jury.”
Ellison’s leaked diaries detail both her own doubts about her ability to do her job and her on-off relationship with SBF. The New York Times broke the story but, as noted by the filing, the article failed to disclose who provided the diaries.
Read more: From Alameda chief to bankrupting FTX, meet Caroline Ellison
According to the filing, “it is apparent that documents were shared by the defendant with the article’s reporters” as the defense counsel confirmed SBF had met with one of the article’s authors in person and had “shared documents with him that were not part of the Government’s discovery material.”
Ellison has pleaded guilty to fraud charges following the collapse of FTX and Alameda and agreed to work alongside authorities against SBF. FTX execs Nishad Singh and co-founder Gary Wang have also pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate.
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