Super Bowl Sam Bankman-Fried Feb 12, 2023; Glendale, Arizona, US; General view down the line of scrimmage as Kansas City Chiefs center Creed Humphrey (52) prepares to snap the ball against the Philadelphia Eagles during Super Bowl LVII at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

If the former “King of Crypto” Sam Bankman-Fried thought his problems were over, they’ve probably just begun.

A federal judge recently reprimanded the disgraced former owner of the now-defunct cryptocurrency company FTX. Already facing multiple fraud charges, the judge reprimanded Bankman-Fried for a hilarious reason: He used a VPN to watch Super Bowl LVII between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles.

The New York Post wrote:

A federal judge slapped a new bail restriction on Sam Bankman-Fried Tuesday, after finding out the disgraced FTX founder has been using a virtual private network (VPN) to watch football in recent weeks.

Prosecutors filed a letter to U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan Monday night, alerting him that they discovered Bankman-Fried used a VPN to access the internet on Jan. 29 and Feb. 12, raising concerns that his use of a private network prevents them from monitoring his behavior online.

Prosecutors, according to The Post, argued that using the VPN would mean that his communications would be blocked because nobody could see or follow what he was doing. His team argued he was simply using his NFL Game Pass subscription, but the judge had none of that.

Kaplan was not happy to hear about Bankman-Fried using a private network and immediately banned him from doing so again, ruling that “the defendant’s use of a VPN presents many of the same risks associated with use of an encrypted messaging or call application” – which he is already prohibited from using under his current bail agreement.

The judge ordered Bankman-Fried to appear in court later in the week on Thursday. During that court appearance, the judge warned him that continued circumvention could eventually lead to actual jail time for him.

Sam Bankman-Fried saw his cryptocurrency company FTX collapse and that wasn’t the worst news for him. Bankman-Fried faces multiple, serious fraud charges that led to his current house arrest. He entered a not-guilty plea to those charges. With that being said, it seems very clear that he could be steering himself into a lot of trouble, and it might be hard to find any sympathy for him from others.

[New York Post]

About Chris Novak

Chris Novak has been talking and writing about sports ever since he can remember. Previously, Novak wrote for and managed sites in the SB Nation network for nearly a decade from 2013-2022