A United States District Court has denied one of Sam Bankman-Fried’s pretrial defense motions. According to the court filing, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan dismissed SBF’s Motion in Limine No. 1, which sought to bar the government from introducing evidence produced to the defense after July 1.
Earlier in August, SBF’s defense team proposed a series of motions in limine. These included not only the now-rejected Motion No. 1 but also motions to exclude evidence pertaining to the bankruptcy of FTX, SBF’s resignation from the company, and statements specific to FTX.US.
The recent denial of the first motion came on the heels of a controversial procedural dispute. SBF’s legal team expressed outrage over the sheer volume of discovery documents — totaling 7.7 million pages — released by the U.S. government. They described the late release of an additional 3.7 million pages as a violation of the agreed discovery timeline and called for court intervention to prevent further substantial document releases in light of the imminent trial.
While the court’s recent ruling complicates the defense’s strategy, SBF’s legal team continues to emphasize the importance of his active participation in his defense. He currently awaits trial at the Metropolitan Detention Center, where he has been unable to review the evidence due to lack of access to the hard drive sent to the facility.
With the trial just six weeks away, SBF maintains his not-guilty plea, planning to argue that his actions were in good faith and based on legal advice.
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