FTX founder heads to court after judge rejects bail request

NEW YORK (AP) — FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried will head to a New York courtroom Thursday to face a federal judge who said his effort to contact a likely trial witness against him seemed designed so they would “sing out of the same hymn book.”

On Tuesday, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan rejected Bankman's-Fried's lawyers' request that oral arguments about his bail be cancelled because lawyers on both sides have settled their differences on necessary changes to his bail package in order to prevent inappropriate contact with witnesses or damaging encrypted social media communications.

The arguments, set for Thursday morning, will proceed as scheduled, the judge ruled as he declined to immediately approve new bail conditions that defense lawyers said prosecutors had agreed with, including the exemption of certain individuals from a proposed no-contact list and permission for Bankman-Fried to place audio and video calls.

A spokesperson for Bankman-Fried's attorneys declined to comment.

The hearing was scheduled after prosecutors said Bankman-Fried sent an encrypted message over the Signal texting app on Jan. 15 to the general counsel of FTX US.

“I would really love to reconnect and see if there’s a way for us to have a constructive relationship, use each other as resources when possible, or at least vet things with each other. I'd love to get on a phone call sometime soon and chat,” Bankman-Fried wrote to the FTX general counsel, who isn't named but is dubbed “Witness 1,” in the prosecutors’ letter.

Federal prosecutors told Kaplan that Bankman-Fried’s communications indicate he may be trying to influence a witness with incriminating evidence against him.

Last week, Kaplan wrote that Bankman's-Fried's lawyers appealed to him to interpret the message “in a benign way.” But he said...