By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell book
NY Mag Song 1
LITERARY SDNY, Dec 27 – With the SDNY courthouse officially closed for day, then in slugging holiday-mode as the regulators seemed to have been for much longer on FTX, Kurt Wheelock turned his gaze south to Washington DC.
Sure there was the fancy Indian restaurant dinner at Rasika West End with then-CFTC Commissioner Dan Berkovitz, now the SEC's general counsel (at least into the new year), set up by the FTX general counsel Ryne Miller who SBF was now trashing. But what about the Federal Reserve?
Kurt knew the Fed, from a meeting in the boardroom with its high ceiling to looking around in the bushes on Constitution Avenue outside. Why had the Fed become the go-to regulator for Silvergate, and Farmington State Bank, invested in by FTX / Alameda, renamed Moonstone Bank?
Kurt's FOIA request had, surprisingly to him, been granted expedited processing. But how long would that be? Kurt would head down to DC on the overnight bus, unlike how SBF had traveled, and try to work his DC sources, such as they were.
But before that, another check of the US v FTX dockets at the courthouse PACER terminal. Nothing since December 23, then Judge Abram had recused herself.
Looking back, the letter from Caroline Ellison, with whom Judge Abrams had overlapped in the SDNY prosecutors' office, had said Ellison was the subject of media harassment. Yet now relatively so little coverage of the content of her guilty plea allocution, the one Kurt had tweeted screen shots of....
The tech world was in chaos and the real world was shutting or at least slowing down. Ukraine's foreign minister was quoted that the UN's Big Tony would make a good mediator. Maybe they'd raised enough money to buy him away. Everything, it seemed, was for sale...
Including the New York Times? From the Bahamas, even now, they published an article defending SBF, how people there loved him and that it was unfair he was prosecuted more than the "gangsters" of New Providence.
This was the same type of coverage that overplayed SBF's bond as bail, while ignored the 19 year olds like Edwin Pozo, whom the SDNY prosecutors get remanded to the MDC pre-trial for having robbed a smokeshop. Woke media that didn't actually pay attention or follow through. Paid but not paying attention.
On Kurt's way to the courthouse, the US v. SBF case was reassigned, to Judge Lewis A. Kaplan. What many in SDNY noted was the sign outside his courtroom, use of phones strictly prohibited, under penalty of contempt of court.
But Judge Kaplan had agreed to a feed of the Kevin Spacey trial he had presided over, and presumably would agree to do so on SBF. Would he require Bankman-Fried to come to New York for each court appearance, and not to phone- or video it in? And what about the supporters of Donziger the signs about Kaplan they had carried?
Kurt headed into the courthouse. To be continued- song 1 here; more on Patreon here 1 and here 2 and here 3 and here 4 and here 5
***
Your support means a lot. As little as $5 a month helps keep us going and grants you access to exclusive bonus material on our Patreon page. Click here to become a patron.
Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
