Sam Bankman-Fried’s food plan while behind bars in the Bahamas consisted of a jar of peanut butter, said the disgraced founder of FTX, who’s awaiting trial on federal fraud charges.
“I spent a while attempting to see how far a jar of peanut butter could take me” Bankman-Fried told Puck News.
“It was a little touch and go away for a while,” Bankman-Fried said of his condition while held at Fox Hill, the infamous rat-and-worm-infested prison that has a popularity for keeping prisoners in severely unsanitary conditions.
Bankman-Fried, who spoke to Puck News from his parents’ home in Palo Alto, was arrested by Bahamian law enforcement officials last month after U.S. federal prosecutors filed criminal charges stemming from the collapse of his FTX cryptocurrency platform.
After his arrest, it was reported that Bankman-Fried’s family called the prison where he was being held and asked if vegan meals might be provided to him.
The 30-year-old former crypto tycoon, who at one point had a net price of $26 billion, was given his own room in the maximum security wing of the prison.
Bankman-Fried was unable to receive visitors attributable to COVID-19 restrictions at the prison, a place the warden once described as “unsuitable for humanity.”
He was imagined to remain in prison until a minimum of February 8, but he made a cope with US prosecutors to finish his fight against extradition.
Bankman-Fried was released on $250 million bail last month. Federal prosecutors said his handling of FTX was “fraud on an epic scale.”
Before his arrest last month, Bankman-Fried said in late November that he had “almost nothing” left and “possibly $100,000 in this checking account.”
In his recent interview with Puck News, Bankman-Fried asserted his innocence and said he plans to fight the charges in court.
“Yes,” he told Puck News when asked if he intended to prove his innocence. “That is the plan.”
He revealed that his parents arranged for a 75-pound German Shepherd named Sandor to stick with him attributable to constant concerns for his safety.
Bankman-Fried told Puck News that personal security guards hired by his parents to guard their $4 million Palo Alto home where he resides recently detained a person who tried to maintain him in “citizen’s custody.”
“People say they need to return here to make a citizen’s arrest. I don’t understand this. I’ve already been arrested,” he said.
Bankman-Fried also revealed that his friends not speak to him.
“I have been incredibly lucky and lucky over a few years in terms of the many relationships and support I’ve had,” he said.
“There’s principally nothing left now.”
Bankman-Fried added, “Most of the people I have been friends with don’t seek advice from me.”
“I do not blame people for wanting to avoid getting caught up in the s-show as best they’ll.”
Federal prosecutors entered into cooperative agreements with Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang, Bankman-Fried’s top associates at FTX and Alameda Research.
Alameda is a hedge fund run by Ellison that allegedly used billions of dollars of FTX client funds to cover dangerous bets.
FTX’s demise was sparked by rival Binance’s decision to dump FTT, the FTX-created cryptocurrency that Bankman-Fried used as the basis for many of its exchange’s reserves.
When Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao stepped back from his plan to rescue FTX, Bankman-Fried’s empire collapsed.