Sam Bankman-Fried On Suicide Watch While in Detention: Ex-Inmate

• Borrello said the suicide watch lasted for only one day.
• Gene Borrello revealed that Sam Bankman-Fried was on suicide watch for a day while in jail.
• The ex-inmate said Bankman-Fried did not expect to receive a long jail term after sentencing.

Gene Borrello, a former mob enforcer who was in detention with Sam Bankman-Fried, said the former FTX CEO was on suicide watch for a day while in jail. Borrello said so during a recorded video conversation with Tiffany Fong, a self-described “reluctant crypto content creator.”

According to Borrello, Bankman-Fried was in a section of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn that housed other high-profile individuals, including some top government officials. He noted that the suicide watch lasted for only one day, and he could not verify whether the former FTX chief was truly suicidal or pretending to be so.

The former mob enforcer said that during his interaction with Bankman-Fried, the embattled ex-crypto magnate believed he would be sentenced to only 20 years and would not be offered a plea bargain. However, he let the former FTX boss know that going to trial would lead to him spending a long time in jail.

Borrello told Fong that while in jail, Bankman-Fried seemed not to understand the extent of his troubles. According to him, some of those in the same detention section tried to explain things to the embattled former CEO and make him realize the extent of his predicament. He also noted that some people in detention attempted to attack the ex-FTX chief.

The former New York Bonanno crime family gangster said Bankman-Fried was nervous while in jail, and some of the prisoners attempted to bully him. He recalled an incident where he defended Bankman-Fried, leading to a fight between his group and other detainees trying to attack the former FTX boss.

Borrello explained that Bankman-Fried had to be kept away from the wider prison population for safety reasons. He believed keeping him in the regular population could have led to several attacks on him because of the money he had, as many inmates would try to extort him.