District Judge Ronnie Abrams dropped out of the case against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), which changed the direction of the case. The US District Court for the Southern District of New York got out of the FTX case when it came out that Abrams’s husband is a partner at a law firm that gave advice to the crypto exchange in 2021.
In a filing on December 23, Judge Abrams said that her husband, Greg Andres, is a partner at the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, where he has worked since June 2019. The fact that the law firm had helped FTX in 2021 was also brought up.
Abrams also said that the law firm represented people in other legal cases who might be against FTX and SBF. “My husband hasn’t had anything to do with any of these cases,” she said, adding that the District Court doesn’t know about them because they are confidential.
“However, the Court is getting out of this action to avoid any possible conflict or the appearance of one.”
The fact that Andres is still a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell means that there is no longer a conflict of interest in the FTX case now that Judge Abrams has left it.
A paper from the court says District Judge Ronnie Abrams is no longer involved in the Samuel Bankman-Fried case. Source: documentcloud.org
Andres used to be an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. There, he was in charge of criminal fraud cases and investigations into foreign bribery.
On December 22, SBF was given a $250 million bail bond based on a written promise to show up in court and not do anything illegal.
But the bail made people curious because SBF had said before filing for bankruptcy that it had less than $100,000.
With the personal recognisance bail, Bankman-Fried was able to get out of jail without having to pay anything. The bail was set at the value of a property that his parents, a family member, and a family friend all owned.
