Overcrowded, No Heat, Little Light: Inside SBF's Prison Digs

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has traded his palatial Bahamas bunker for a bunk furniture arsenic helium transitions from luxe to lockup.

Bankman-Fried is staying astatine the Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn, 1 of the nation's astir notorious correctional facilities. Conditions astatine the jailhouse, wherever Bankman-Fried has resided for six weeks since losing his bail, are a acold outcry from the erstwhile billionaire's aged Caribbean stomping grounds: The net is slow, the surviving quarters soiled and the cafeteria offerings slim, his lawyers person argued.

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"[He’s] subsisting connected breadstuff and water… sometimes peanut butter," the defence told a national justice past month.

Former residents of the celebrated installation and their lawyers, however, person said there's overmuch much to archer astir the notorious lockup. They’ve likened conditions astatine the jailhouse to those faced by "prisoners of war" and Hannibal Lecter successful the fearfulness movie "The Silence of the Lambs."

But what’s MDC truly similar connected the inside? Here’s what we cognize astir the infamous detention center:

MDC Brooklyn is simply a ample situation analyzable encompassing 2 buildings and lodging much than 1,600 antheral and pistillate prisoners, galore of whom inactive await trial. As a mixed-security facility, the MDC houses inmates with a assortment of transgression histories, including terrorism, organized transgression and cause smuggling, a study from the Bureau of Prisons shows. Current inmates see Juan Orlando Hernandez, a erstwhile president of Honduras who has pleaded not blameworthy to cause trafficking charges, and Guo Wengui, a Chinese businessman who has pleaded not blameworthy to fraud charges.

Others who person antecedently served abbreviated stints astatine the jailhouse see Epstein-accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell and pharma bro Martin Shkreli.

Regimented day-to-day life

Bankman-Fried apt has a rigid docket astatine MDC.

Inmates aftermath up astatine 6 a.m., and indispensable marque their beds, mop the level and thin to their trash, an predisposition handbook from the installation shows. From there, inmates similar Bankman-Fried mightiness spell to enactment astir the facility, serving arsenic prep cooks successful the jail's kitchen, providing janitorial services passim the analyzable oregon assisting astatine the facility's attraction shop.

At 11 a.m., they devour lunch. Dinner is served astatine 4 p.m. Meals are supposed to dwell of a nutrient specified arsenic turkey, a starch similar atom and a rootlike oregon fruit, but prisoners are really served acold cuts, sandwich bread, moldy lb cakes and different "unidentifiable food[s] from the kitchen," according to a petition connected Change.org.

If Bankman-Fried, a vegan, doesn't similar what's connected connection astatine the cafeteria, helium tin usage his $150 play commissary allowance to bargain peanut food and jelly sandwiches, worthy $3.65 each. He tin bargain up to 2 of those per day, according to the complex's rules.

Shared dorms, nary vigor and nary yards

In betwixt meals and work, inmates are allowed breaks. However, there's nary situation gait for recreational activities astatine MDC. Instead, Bankman-Fried volition person to bent retired with his chap inmates successful indoor assemblage rooms, wherever they tin play cards, speech and ticker television.

Bankman-Fried tin besides instrumentality showers during his downtime successful 1 of 5 separate, idiosyncratic ablution stalls, according to erstwhile inmates. Lines to usage the showers are often long.

At the extremity of each day, Bankman-Fried whitethorn discontinue to a communal dorm with rows of bunk beds, according to erstwhile prisoners’ accounts. However, it's besides imaginable helium has been enactment successful protective custody and has his ain cell.

Either way, getting immoderate shuteye whitethorn not beryllium easy. Fluorescent lights support the dorm, and different rooms crossed the jailhouse, semi-lit 24 hours a day, inmates’ writings show. In addition, inmates tin often beryllium heard shouting crossed compartment blocks astatine each hours of the night, erstwhile prisoners person said.

Uncomfortable vigor and acold is different imaginable contented Bankman-Fried whitethorn brushwood during his enactment astatine MDC Brooklyn. According to respective section quality reports, galore parts of the MDC deficiency heating, and aerial conditioning units are sparse passim overmuch of the facility.