Sam Bankman-Fried thought prison would be ‘like The Shawshank Redemption’

Get busy living or get busy drying.

According to the report, former billionaire Sam Bankman-Freed was forced to use a hose and cold water to shower while languishing in a Bahamian prison that the accused crypto mogul said was “like The Shawshank Redemption.”

Bankman-Fried, who was taken into custody by law enforcement officers in the Bahamas on Dec. 12, said he was forced to shower in a moldy stall during his brief stay in a small 20-square-foot room in the infirmary of the notorious Fox Hill Detention Facility in Nassau.

“I thought it would be like The Shawshank Redemption,” Bankman-Fried, 30, said. told Forbesa reference to the 1994 Oscar-winning film starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman.

In the film, Robbins’ character Andy Dufresne is sent to prison, where he and other inmates are regularly beaten, raped, and in some cases killed by inmates as well as guards – all under the watchful eye of a corrupt warden.

However, Bankman-Freed was spared the danger of dealing with the general population in the prison, which human rights groups say is infested with maggots, mice and cockroaches. His 10-day sentence was spent in the infirmary along with five other prisoners.

He was also given the luxury of using his own infirmary bathroom, which had a door but the toilet would not flush on its own, forcing him to use a bucket of water on every trip.

On the rare occasion that he took a shower, he was under a cold water hose and had to dry his hands and face with a 3-by-5-inch towel, according to Forbes.

The FTX founder told Forbes that his sleeper was “the worst possible bed you can imagine, made of cardboard and a piece of semi-soft plastic on stilts.”

There were no pillows, so Bankman-Freed rolled up the navy blue jacket he wore for his court appearances and used it to rest his head at night.

He was also not served a regular vegan diet, according to Forbes, instead settling for peanut butter, stale Wonder Bread and fresh fruit.

However, unlike Dufresne, Bankman-Freed told Forbes that he never felt in danger with the other inmates he shared the infirmary with.

Bankman-Fried said the prisoners were mostly incarcerated for drug-related crimes. They reportedly told him that dealing drugs was three times more profitable than earning a wage at McDonald’s.

He described to Forbes the tense moments leading up to his dramatic arrest. Bankman-Fried said he was on the phone with his New York lawyer, who was relaying a message from the FBI.

The bureau told Bankman-Freed’s lawyer that the Bahamas police were on their way to arrest his client. According to Forbes, the feds said the deceased FTX founder had to choose between waiting for local cops to capture him or agreeing to be extradited to the US on “some bail terms.”

If Bankman-Freed opts for extradition, the FBI will stop the Bahamian cops and take him into custody. He will then be whisked away and put on a private jet bound for the mainland within hours, according to Forbes.

But Bankman-Freed wasn’t sure his arrest was imminent, so he asked his parents to call senior Bahamas government officials in hopes of confirming the information, according to Forbes.

None of the officials called by Bankman-Frieds claimed to have knowledge of the arrest.

“They have no idea what this is about,” a source close to Bankman-Fried told Forbes.

“They think it’s apocryphal … and that they assume that the US does not understand that they have no power here … If we were going to arrest you, we would have done it a month ago,” the source told Forbes.

Bankman-Freed claims the arrest was part of an “organized pressure campaign” by the US Department of Justice to get the Bahamas to apprehend him before he had a chance to escape.

A cable sent from the Department of Justice to the office of the Attorney General of the Bahamas two days before the arrest read: “Lawfully obtained documentary evidence and various interviews of witnesses indicate that Bankman-Fried personally amassed billions of dollars from his involvement in a criminal conspiracy: thus , he has the means and may soon have an excuse to flee the Bahamas.

The Post has requested a comment from a Bankman-Fried spokesperson.

Bankman-Fried initially fought extradition but eventually relented. He pleaded not guilty to fraud and money laundering before being released on $250 million bail pending trial due to begin in Lower Manhattan this fall.

Bankman-Fried is currently under house arrest in Palo Alto, California for $4 million. the home of his parents, Stanford law professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Freed.

He denied accusations that he defrauded FTX investors and customers by funneling $1.8 billion invested in the platform into his hedge fund. If found guilty, he faces up to 115 years in prison.

According to Forbes, the Bankman-Fried family hired armed private security guards and bought a trained German Shepherd that can attack on command with a secret code word.

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