Appeals Court grants former JPMorgan FX trader request for bail
Shortly after the New York Southern District Court nixed an attempt by former JPMorgan FX trader Akshay Aiyer to secure bail, the Appeals Court has demonstrated a different opinion on the matter.
On December 2, 2020, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a brief order stating that Aiyer’s request for bail pending appeal is granted on the terms previously set by the district court.
Let’s recall that Mr Aiyer challenged his 8-month prison sentence for FX market rigging by arguing that the Court erred in precluding substantial evidence that the conduct in which he engaged had no impact on supply and demand and on price. According to him, this evidence went to his state of mind and would have demonstrated to the jury that he lacked criminal intent to manipulate prices.
If, given the nature of the currency market, the charged conduct was not capable of having an anticompetitive effect, then no rational defendant could have intended to try to manipulate prices to reap little or no personal gain, Mr Aiyer said.
Also, Aiyer has complained about the conditions at the prison facility he has been assigned to. The Bureau of Prisons has assigned Aiyer to Moshannon Valley Correctional Institute (“MVCI”), a privately-run, for-profit prison for non-citizens, located in Moshannon Valley, Pennsylvania.
The defense counsel stressed that the facility is one of a group of 12 such private facilities for non-citizens that have been collectively characterized as having “higher rates of prison violence and reduced access to family and counsel,” “unusually poor” healthcare, overcrowding, and higher rates of solitary confinement, lockdowns, and deaths in custody than comparable BOP institutions.