Convicted crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried was reportedly thrown in solitary confinement after taking an unauthorized jailhouse interview with Tucker Carlson this week.
Bankman-Fried appeared in a video call released Thursday with the former Fox News host from Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, where he has been held for the last 18 months. The interview was his latest push in an apparent long-shot campaign to receive a presidential pardon for his 25-year sentence.
But after the video went live, Bankman-Fried was moved to solitary and a spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons said “this particular interview was not approved,” The New York Times reported.
Inmate communications in federal prisons are heavily regulated.
In 2023, the disgraced tech mogul was sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud and conspiracy, stealing more than $8 billion from customers of his cryptocurrency exchange, FTX.
The 33-year-old has been trying to plead his case since the company collapsed in 2022.
After FTX went bankrupt, Bankman-Fried devised a 19-point plan to revive his public image, according to a memo released by federal prosecutors. Number three on the list was: “Go on Tucker Carlsen [sic], come out as a republican [sic].” Part of that bullet was also, “Come out against the woke agenda.”
Bankman-Fried, previously a major donor to the Democratic party, took the opportunity to appeal to Republicans on the show.
“In 2020, I was center-left, and I gave to Biden’s campaign,” SBF told Carlson. “I was optimistic he would be a center-left president.”
But he was “really, really shocked” by what he saw in DC in the years that followed. “Not in a good direction,” he added.
Last month, SBF slammed the Biden administration for its “politicization” of the Justice Department in an interview with The New York Sun. He said he found the “Republican party was far more reasonable” and praised Elon Musk, special adviser to Trump and head of the new Department of Government Efficiency.
Bankman-Fried’s parents, both Stanford University law professors, and other supporters have reportedly been contacting sources close to Washington to advocate for his clemency.
There has been no indication they have reached Trump or his advisors, however, and the White House has not commented on the effort.
No official pardon request has been submitted on Bankman-Fried’s behalf, either.
He has maintained his innocence and filed an appeal in September, arguing that the judge who oversaw the case was biased and only saw “half the picture.”
In Thursday’s interview, Bankman-Fried also revealed what it was like living with “alleged ex-gangsters” and high-profile cellmates like Sean “Diddy” Combs.
“He’s been kind to me,” Bankman-Fried said of Combs. “It’s a position no one wants to be in. Obviously he doesn’t, I don’t.”
“It’s kind of a soul crushing place,” he added.
