SBF maintains his innocence as he trades rice in jail
Written by Jesse Coghlan
Compiled by: Odaily Planet Daily Husband
This is SBF’s first face-to-face conversation with the media since being incarcerated at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in August 2023. In an interview published on May 9, SBF spoke with William Cohan of Puck News, organized by SBF’s mother, Barbara Fried.
According to the interview, SBF's diet is mainly vegetarian. Because the vegetarian meals of MDC make other prisoners feel "smelly like feces", he mainly lives on beans and rice, and rice has "become a trading currency within MDC". SBF even joked that "compared with his previous life as a high-frequency trader, the arbitrage opportunities in prison are much better."
According to Puck News, SBF has lost a lot of weight, losing 25 pounds (11 kg), "not so fat anymore, not so nervous, not so restless, and no bags under his eyes." And during the interview, SBF almost always stared into Cohan's eyes, which was rarely seen before. And, he sadly admitted that he had "learned to pretend" to be fine.
SBF’s living area is a large open dormitory that the MDC once built for female prisoners, and he lives with 35 other male prisoners - according to reports, half of them are murderers who have compromised with the government. However, according to SBF, prison life is very boring. There are only four TVs and a tablet that cannot connect to the Internet for entertainment. He can only play games on the tablet. Although there are many murderers living with him, SBF is not worried about his own safety. Instead, he often sleeps poorly because his fellow inmates frequently wake him up - they always ask SBF how much rice he has and want to exchange it.
Although his prison life was colorful because of "rice", SBF never gave up on getting out of the crime and always insisted that he was a "scapegoat". Last month, SBF filed a notice saying that he was appealing the fraud and money laundering charges.
Additionally, SBF speaks with his new attorney for about an hour almost every weekday—and after taking the approved prescription medication, SBF is able to think very clearly in his communications.
SBF insisted in the interview that he was framed as a scapegoat for FTX's bankruptcy, and believed that his only negligence was to put FTX in a position vulnerable to bank runs and malicious behavior of competitors, and believed that the reasonable punishment should be civil, not criminal.
Reporter Cohan noted that SBF still does not believe it committed a crime and portrays itself as an innocent participant who was not given adequate opportunities to consult with prosecutors. And SBF is not apologetic for being convicted of helping to embezzle approximately $8 billion in customer funds.
SBF stressed that handing over the company to FTX’s legal team was the culprit that framed him for the company’s bankruptcy; if he had stayed in the leadership position of FTX, the company would not have gone bankrupt, but would have been a thriving company worth $80 billion. He added that after his lawyers convinced him that running both the trading company and FTX was a conflict of interest, he should have tried harder to find someone other than his ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison to lead Alameda, or simply ignored them and continued to run both companies.
SBF has asked to stay at the MDC until he files his appeal, which should be in July. But under the terms of the law, SBF can be transferred at any time, and will likely be placed in a central California prison close to where his parents are. If that happens, SBF would likely take a prison bus across the country for four months to get to the California prison.