Fired OpenAI engineer accused of bugging office won't be released from jail
San Francisco's federal courthouse held the detention hearing for Abdulrahman Alfozan, the arrested and fired OpenAI engineer, on Monday.
Brennan Smart/Bloomberg via Getty Images Abdulrahman Alfozan will stay jailed pre-trial, a San Francisco judge decided Monday.
The engineer is accused of bugging a conference room at OpenAI, and he has been fired.
Alfozan posed a risk of non-appearance, the judge said, after discussing his ties to Saudi Arabia.
A former OpenAI engineer accused of bugging the AI startup's office was denied release by a San Francisco judge on Monday, meaning he'll have to mount his defense from jail.
The Justice Department arrested Abdulrahman Alfozan on October 9 and charged him with using or attempting to use a device to intercept oral communications.
He's accused of placing a recording device behind a television in an OpenAI conference room — an FBI affidavit includes photos of the device wrapped in toilet paper, and a man they say is Alfozan peering behind the TV.
On Monday, the engineer wore a yellow surgical mask and a jail-issued orange sweatshirt to the San Francisco courthouse.
Magistrate Judge Alex G.
Tse prodded Alfozan's legal team about the risk that he might not appear for a future court hearing.
Tse said that Alfozan's wife and son had traveled to Saudi Arabia with no plans to return, and went back and forth with Yasin about a one-way ticket that Alfozan had previously booked to the country.
Tse said that Saudi Arabia and the US do not have an extradition agreement, and expressed skepticism that he had sufficient ties to the Bay Area to prevent his departure.
William Pernik, Alfozan's attorney, argued that, rather than being detained, Alfozan should be fitted with an ankle monitor, ordered to stay home, and have limits placed on his use of technology.
The lawyer also said Alfozan is willing to put up "essentially all the money his family has" as bond, including a roughly $1 million investment account.
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