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Behind MDC Walls — Independent Reporter Captures Photo of Sam Bankman-Fried’s New Reality

Behind MDC Walls — Independent Reporter Captures Photo of Sam Bankman-Fried’s New RealityThis week, a prison snapshot featuring Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the ex-FTX chief, was released by the independent journalist Tiffany Fong. Capturing the first glimpse of SBF since his detention, the image places the once-prominent cryptocurrency magnate alongside five other detainees within the confines of the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn. First Look: SBF Behind […]

Trader turns $3K into $46M in PEPE, Ethereum gas overhaul, Tornado dev guilty: Hodler’s Digest, May 12-18

SBF was almost extorted for ‘protection’ in Brooklyn jail, recalls ex-inmate

Gene Borrello, a former prisoner at the Metropolitan Detention Center told crypto blogger Tiffany Fong that Sam Bankman-Fried was targeted for his timid nature and having “the body of the 80-year-old.”

Sam Bankman-Fried was reportedly worried for his safety during his pre-trial detention time at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center and even considered paying another inmate for “protection,” according to a former inmate. 

New York mob enforcer-turned-informant Gene Borrello told crypto blogger Tiffany Fong in a Nov. 30 interview that spent time with Bankman-Fried in the lead-up to his criminal trial.

Borrello said during his time there, other prisoners saw the former crypto mogul as timid, having “the body of the 80-year-old,” and was presumed to have access to money.

“He has the body of the 80-year-old. He has, like, no shape to him, you know what I mean?”

A prisoner attempted to make Bankman-Fried fearful to extort him for protection money.

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Trader turns $3K into $46M in PEPE, Ethereum gas overhaul, Tornado dev guilty: Hodler’s Digest, May 12-18

Sam Bankman-Fried spends 3rd night in notorious New York prison

The former FTX CEO has swapped his parent's cozy Stanford home for the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, which isn't known for its comforts.

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is going into his third night with over 1,500 other inmates in one of New York's most notorious prisons — a far cry from his parent's multi-million dollar five-bedroom home in Stanford.

The FTX co-founder had his bail revoked by Judge Lewis Kaplan in an Aug. 11 hearing, where he described the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) as being a jail “not on anybody’s list of five-star facilities.”

The MDC is a federal administrative detention center based in New York. It is an all-gender facility accommodating individuals under federal custody. The facility currently houses over 1,500 inmates but was only built to accommodate 1,000.

Bankman-Fried is expected to spend at least the next two months at the facility as he awaits his criminal trial, though his lawyers have already filed an appeal to have his bail revocation revised.

Not exactly Club Me

Unfortunately for Bankman-Fried, the prison has long been embroiled in scandals involving inmate mistreatment and corruption.

Ex-warden Cameron Lindsay said in 2019 that the MDC was “one of the most troubled, if not the most troubled facility in the Bureau of Prisons.”

Outside of the Brooklyn MDC in 2008. Source: Jim Henderson, Wikimedia Commons

In April prosecutors charged a guard with taking bribes in exchange for smuggling in contraband such as phones, cigarettes, and drugs.

In winter 2019 the facility suffered a week-long power outage leaving inmates with no heating.

The Intercept reported inmates were banging on cell windows to outside onlookers and those non-violently protesting the conditions were pepper sprayed, thrown in solitary confinement or had their toilets shuttered.

MDC's star-studded former inmates

Many high-profile figures have previously been remanded in the Brooklyn big house including artists 6ix9ine, R. Kelly and Fetty Wap.

Martin Shkreli, better known as “pharma bro,” also had a stint at the MDC along with Jeffery Epstein’s sex trafficking accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.

Up until recently, Bankman-Fried was on bail confined to his parent's $4 million Palo Alto home that boasts five bedrooms and a pool.

Aerial view of the Bankman-Fried house in Palo Alo, California. Source: Google Maps

The revocation of Bankman-Fried’s bail came after a leak of a diary belonging to former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison to The New York Times which described her feelings toward Bankman-Fried and her role at the company.

Related: FTX’s former law firm hit with lawsuit alleging it set up shadowy entities

Prosecutors alleged Bankman-Fried leaked the diary in an attempt to discredit Ellison — a witness in his criminal trial — and intimidate her.

His lawyers denied the allegations, calling Bankman-Fried’s contact with reporters a “proper exercise of his rights to make fair comment on an article already in progress” and appealed the judge’s decision to revoke his bail.

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Trader turns $3K into $46M in PEPE, Ethereum gas overhaul, Tornado dev guilty: Hodler’s Digest, May 12-18