--- title: "SBF’s Lawyers Say It’s Fine to Leak Your Ex-Girlfriend’s Diary to the New York Times" description: "Lawyers for disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried say that it's fine, actually, to leak your ex-girlfriend's diary to the New York Times." date: "2023-07-25" modified: "2023-07-25" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/sbf-lawyers-defend-diary-leak" categories: - "Blockchain" - "Future Society" tags: - "caroline ellison" - "ftx" - "sbf" - "the digest" --- # SBF’s Lawyers Say It’s Fine to Leak Your Ex-Girlfriend’s Diary to the New York Times ![Lawyers for disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried say that it's fine, actually, to leak your ex-girlfriend's diary to the New York Times.]() *\Image: Caroline Ellison\* ## Leaky Faucet After getting [slapped with a warning from the Department of Justice]() over the leaking of private and personal documents, lawyers for disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried have fired back and said that it's fine, actually. In a [Sunday filing]() to the judge presiding over his federal case, SBF's attorneys Mark Cohen and Christian Everdell insisted that it wasn't actually bad for their client to leak his [ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison's diary entries to the *New York Times*]() even though the DOJ claimed the opposite in its [request for a gag order](). "The Government has taken a set of circumstances where nothing improper or impermissible occurred and has unfairly recast the events as a nefarious attempt by Mr. Bankman-Fried to 'discredit' Caroline Ellison and 'taint' the jury pool," his lawyers wrote. "But Mr. Bankman-Fried did nothing wrong." SBF was exercising his First Amendment rights, the filing claims, when he gave the *NYT* Ellison's writings. And anyway, the *NYT* story "was favorable to Ms. Ellison and negative towards Mr. Bankman-Fried," the lawyers wrote. ## He Admitted It Along with the assertion that it's not nefarious to share someone else's innermost thoughts with the media, the lawyers also admit in their filing that SBF was, in fact, the person who leaked the diary entries to the *NYT*, which did not same its source. "A reporter contacted Mr. Bankman-Fried and asked if he wanted to respond to an article about Ms. Ellison that had been in process for months," the filing continues. "Mr. Bankman-Fried spoke to the reporter and shared certain documents that he had obtained prior to his arrest, and that were not produced in discovery, in an effort to give his side of the story about topics that have already been reported in the media." To their end, Cohen and Everdell did say that if presiding Judge Lewis Kaplin issues a gag order, their client will comply. They also asked that the same order be given to John Ray III, the [former Enron exec]() who began running FTX during its bankruptcy proceedings last year and who has, as the lawyers note, "routinely made disparaging statements" while the government "stood silent." It was within the "hyper-toxic media environment" in the aftermath of the FTX crash that SBF leaked the documents, the lawyers wrote — an environment that was, they claim, made worse by [Ray's repeated attacks](). Claims of toxicity aside, the clapback does make for an interesting update in this seemingly never-ending scandal that has revealed way more than anyone would like to know about the [participants' sex lives](), [thoughts on monogamy](), and [mental health issues](). And the lawyers did get one thing right: in the *NYT* piece about [Ellison's diary](), at least, she does come off a lot more likable than SBF. **More on FTX:** [*FTX Considered Buying an Island to Conduct Human Genetic Experimentation*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()