A Manhattan federal decide recognized for swift selections and a no-nonsense demeanor was assigned on Tuesday to the Sam Bankman-Fried cryptocurrency case.
The case was relegated to Choose Lewis A Kaplan after the decide initially assigned recused herself as a result of her husband labored for a legislation agency that did work associated to FTX, Bankman-Fried’s collapsed crypto trade.
Kaplan is now presiding over a civil case introduced by the previous Elle journal recommendation columnist E Jean Carroll in opposition to Donald Trump. Carroll says Trump raped her within the dressing room of a Manhattan luxurious division retailer in 1995 or 1996. Trump denies the accusation. A trial is ready for April.
Kaplan additionally presided over intercourse abuse claims by an American lady in opposition to Prince Andrew earlier than the 2 sides settled earlier this 12 months, with Andrew declaring that he by no means meant to malign the girl’s character and agreeing to donate to her charity. Earlier than the settlement, Kaplan refused Andrew’s request to toss the lawsuit.
Bankman-Fried was arrested within the Bahamas two weeks in the past and dropped at the US final week to face fees he cheated buyers and looted buyer deposits on his buying and selling platform.
On Thursday he was freed on a $250m private recognizance bond, to dwell together with his mother and father in Palo Alto, California, with an digital monitoring bracelet connected.
Kaplan, 78, has held senior standing in Manhattan federal court docket for greater than a decade. He was nominated to the bench by Invoice Clinton in 1994.
He has overseen high-profile trials and several other circumstances notable within the monetary world, together with what authorities described as the primary federal bitcoin securities fraud prosecution. Kaplan sentenced that defendant to 18 months in jail.
In 2014, he blocked US courts from getting used to gather a $9bn Ecuadorian judgment in opposition to Chevron for rainforest injury, saying legal professionals within the case poisoned an honorable quest with unlawful and wrongful conduct.
In 2012, he delayed his acceptance of a responsible plea by a Utah banker, ordering prosecutors to elucidate why they have been letting the banker plead responsible to a misdemeanor financial institution playing cost slightly than a felony.
Kaplan has been recognized to turn out to be irritable with legal professionals on all sides.
In 1997, he blasted the US Immigration and Naturalization Service for not performing quick sufficient in an asylum case.
“That is about as expedited as a glacier going uphill,” he snapped.
Calling the company’s conduct “completely outrageous”, he added: “The INS has within the three years I’ve been on the bench acquitted itself in disastrous vogue greater than as soon as, however this one takes the cake and I’m not going to face for it for much longer.”
In 2000, Kaplan dominated in favor of the movement image trade, giving it authorized safety to guard DVDs from being copied on computer systems.
“Laptop code isn’t purely expressive any greater than the assassination of a political determine is only a political assertion,″ he mentioned.
Most not too long ago, Kaplan presided over the civil trial of Kevin Spacey after one other actor accused him of making an attempt to molest him in his house after a celebration when he was 14 and Spacey was 26. A jury sided with Spacey, discovering that Anthony Rapp had not proved his case.
In 2019, Kaplan sentenced three males to jail after they have been convicted in a university basketball scandal by which a former Adidas government and two others paid households to influence high recruits to play for faculties sponsored by the shoemaker.
Almost a dozen years in the past, Kaplan sentenced Ahmed Ghailani, a former detainee within the US jail at Guantánamo Bay, to life in jail. Kaplan presided over a trial by which Ghailani was convicted of conspiring to destroy US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998. People have been amongst 224 individuals killed within the assaults.
In 2015, Kaplan sentenced Adel Abdul Bary, an Egyptian lawyer, to 25 years in jail for his function within the assaults on the US embassies.
In 2014, Kaplan sentenced Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, to life in jail for serving as al-Qaida’s mouthpiece after the 11 September terror assaults.
Kaplan additionally has presided over sentence discount efforts by males convicted within the February 1993 World Commerce Middle bombing that killed six individuals and injured greater than 1,000.
