Federal prosecutors have asked a Manhattan judge to impose tougher bail conditions on the former FTX FTT/USD chairman Sam Bankman Friedbecause of his attempts to contact a potential witness during the ongoing proceedings investigations against him.

Prosecutors have asked US district judges Lewis Kaplan Ban Bankman-Fried from using encrypted communications devices or messaging apps as it could hamper ongoing investigations, Reuters reports. The request includes restricting communications with current or former employees of FTX or its hedge fund Alameda Research, other than family, unless his attorney is present.

According to court filings, prosecutors cited a Jan. 15 signal message from Bankman-Fried to Witness-1, the general counsel of FTX’s US subsidiary. Bankman-Fried expressed interest in a “constructive relationship” or “at least checking things out.”

“The Defendant’s request to check things out with each other indicates an effort to influence Witness-1’s potential testimony, and the request for a ‘constructive relationship’ also implies that Witness-1 should come to terms with the Defendant ‘ the prosecutors said in the filing.

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“Even if the defendant has not directly attempted to manipulate witnesses, his contact with witnesses can intimidate them,” prosecutors said, not to come forward or testify.

In 2021, then-CEO of FTX, Bankman-Fried directed that many Signal and Slack communications be automatically deleted within 30 days.

According to prosecutors, former Alameda chief Caroline Ellison told them that Bankman-Fried had suggested it might be harder to build legal cases if information wasn’t preserved.

Bankman-Fried returned to the United States from the Bahamas on December 21, 2022 and became published on a $250 million appreciation bond secured from his family home in California the next day.

Bankmann-Fried has…