Sam Bankman-Fried, the jailed former cryptocurrency billionaire known for his casual appearance, has asked a US judge for permission to dress up for his forthcoming fraud trial.
In a Tuesday night court filing, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers asked a judge to order US marshals and Brooklyn jail officials to provide their client with three suit jackets and pairs of slacks to wear in the courtroom.
They also asked that Bankman-Fried be given four dress shirts, three ties, one belt, four pairs of socks, two pairs of shoes and “appropriate undergarments”.
The request will be reviewed by the federal judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan. Bankman-Fried’s trial is due to begin on 3 October and could last six weeks.
Jailed inmates do not have access to their own clothing. Judges often let them wear business attire in court, to avoid possible juror bias if they wore prison garb.
Bankman-Fried, 31, has pleaded not guilty to stealing billions of dollars in customer deposits from FTX, the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange he founded in 2019.
As he rode a boom in bitcoin and other digital assets to an estimated $26bn fortune, Bankman-Fried was known for his unkempt mop of curly hair and wearing rumpled shorts, T-shirts and sneakers even when entertaining the likes of former US president Bill Clinton and ex-British prime minister Tony Blair.
Kaplan revoked Bankman-Fried’s $250m bail on 11 August and remanded him to the Metropolitan detention center in Brooklyn after ruling he likely tampered with witnesses.
At most court appearances since his December 2022 arrest, Bankman-Fried has worn suits. He wore a beige-colored prison uniform at an August hearing following his jailing.
In July, federal prosecutors asked the court to jail the defendant, saying he “crossed a line” by sharing his former romantic partner Caroline Ellison’s personal writings with the New York Times. They argued that such press was intended to discredit Ellison, who is expected to testify against him at his scheduled 2 October trial.
Bankman-Fried had previously been largely confined to his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California, on $250m bond after being extradited from the Bahamas, where FTX was headquartered.
