the federal offense of attempted witness tamperingbankmanfrieds legal team maintained that their clients intentions were innocent contending that he should not be imprisoned for seeking to safeguard his reputation amid a barrage of negative news coverageattorney mark cohen appealed to the judge to suspend the incarceration order for an immediate appeal but the request was denied within an hour bankmanfrieds defense lawyers filed a notice of appealbankmanfried spent the night at the metropolitan detention center in brooklyn a facility that previously housed figures such as pharma bro martin shkreli and convicted sex offenders r kelly and ghislaine maxwellpreviously under house arrest at his parents residence in palo alto california bankmanfrieds bail conditions imposed stringent restrictions on his internet and phone usagejudge kaplan noted that these strictures did not prevent bankmanfried from contacting a senior ftx lawyer in january expressing a desire to reconnect and see if theres a way for us to have a constructive relationship the judge interpreted this communication as potentially indicative of bankmanfrieds involvement in or attempt to commit a federal felony while on releasein the preceding weeks prosecutors surprised bankmanfrieds legal team by petitioning for his imprisonment alleging that he had violated these rules by sharing private writings of his former girlfriend caroline ellison with the new york times prosecutors argued that this was an attempt to tarnish her reputation and influence potential jurors for his upcoming trial in octoberjudge kaplan maintained that the excerpts of ellisons communications shared by bankmanfried were of a nature that one would typically refrain from sharing except with the intention to harm discredit or intimidate the subjectellison who had previously served as ceo of alameda research a cryptocurrency trading hedge fund connected to bankmanfried had pleaded guilty in december to charges carrying a potential prison sentence of 110 years she had agreed to cooperate as a witness against bankmanfried in exchange for a potentially lighter sentencebankmanfrieds defense team argued that their clients attempt to defend his reputation had likely backfired as the article ended up portraying ellison in a sympathetic light they also accused prosecutors of presenting evidence based on innuendo speculation and scant facts in their bid to have him incarceratedfollowing the prosecutors detention request judge kaplan imposed a gag order on trial participants prohibiting them from making public comments however a lawyer for the new york times noted the first amendment implications and the public interest in ellisons case and her cryptocurrency trading firmwith inputs from agencies