Sam Bankman-Fried Sharing Jail Unit With Diddy: NBC
Disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) is reportedly sharing a jail unit with Sean Combs (better known as Diddy) at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn after his arrest last week for sex trafficking, transportation for prostitution, and racketeering.
Metropolitan Detention Center’s Violent History
Speaking to three sources familiar with the matter, the report alleges that Bankman-Fried and Combs are being held in a “barrack-style area” that houses no more than twenty inmates who may require “special detention” due to their high-profile status.
Combs, who was denied bail last week after pleading innocent to the charges brought against him, may have reason to worry given the prison’s long history of violence and lackluster conditions.
According to U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown, MDC inmates have regularly dealt with delayed medical care, aging infrastructure, and “frequent lockdowns due to violence.”
Legal counsel for Combs is currently seeking to remove rapper-turned-business mogul from the squalor MDC as he awaits his trial on criminal charges that could see him face life behind bars.
Bankman-Fried, meanwhile, is serving a 25-year sentence for ringleading a massive digital finance scheme that saw $8 billion worth of investor funds spent on luxury real estate, venture capital, and political donations.
The notoriously vegan A-list crypto convict has notably complained about the food quality at MDC, surviving largely on a diet of bread, water, and peanut butter.
In the spring, SBF told media outlet Puck that he had begun buying and trading beans and bags of rice from the prison’s commissary.
However, he recently refused a prison transfer that would most likely have seen him behind bars in his home state of California. He opted instead to stay in New York to be closer to his legal team as they fleshed out his appeal.
New Cellmates For Sam Bankman-Fried & Sean Combs?
SBF and Diddy join a long line of hated American public figures who have been housed behind the federal prison’s walls, including predatory rapper R. Kelly and Jefferey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
New York’s only other federal prison, Metropolitan Correctional Center, was shuttered by the Federal Bureau of Prisons in 2021 following Epstein’s headline-making suicide.
With several sentencings still ahead for former FTX executives, it may be only a matter of time before Diddy and his cryptocurrency counterpart welcome some new cellmates.