That must be really difficult for him.

No Signal

Jailhouse internet is so bad, apparently, that disgraced crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried's lawyers say it should be grounds for his release.

In a court filing, Bankman-Fried's lawyer Mark Cohen claimed that the Wi-Fi in the Brooklyn jail where the FTX founder is being held without bail is so slow, he can't get any work done on his defense.

Cohen listed a number of issues pertaining to his client's internet access, including transportation delays and the aforementioned slow Wi-Fi. It has been nearly impossible, the attorney claimed, for SBF to prepare for his swiftly approaching trial "with these kinds of limitations."

Though the Department of Justice claims that the 31-year-old crypto pariah should have access to multiple hard drives and databases — as well as a laptop with sufficient battery — his lawyer contends that the government's solution is nowhere near up to snuff.

"We believe that the current solution is untenable and we no longer have the time to see if the Government will be able to devise a plan that works," the attorney wrote. "Almost an entire month has passed since Mr. Bankman-Fried was remanded and we have lost that time to effectively prepare for trial."

Data Daze

Bankman-Fried has been locked up at a notorious jail in Brooklyn to await his upcoming fraud trial for almost a month after a judge ruled he tampered with witnesses while on $250 million bail at his parents' mansion in Palo Alto, California.

And conditions in this particular jail, given previous complaints filed by the likes of convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, paint a troubling picture, from . In other words, bad Wi-Fi is only the tip of the iceberg.

Though the argument is slightly different, this latest filing by Bankman-Fried's lawyers was the second time in a single week that the defense has made such a request.

To be fair, there is a ton of data for SBF to sift through before the scheduled start of his first trial on October 2. As his attorneys noted in yet another filing asking for him to be released from jail ahead of trial, "Bankman-Fried was spending 80-100 hours a week reviewing the voluminous discovery" provided by the government, which included "millions of pages of documents and terabytes of data."

All that said, it seems awfully clear that SBF's hired hands are intent on getting him the kind of preferential treatment that other folks detained in jailhouses will never see.

Then again, it also doesn't seem like senior US district judge Lewis Kaplan will budge, either, given that he was the one who remanded him to jail over allegedly tampering with witnesses in the first place.

More on FTX: It Sounds Like Caroline Ellison Has Some Major Dirt on Sam Bankman-Fried


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