(Bloomberg) -- Sam Bankman-Fried, who was convicted last year of masterminding a massive fraud at the FTX crypto exchange, has been moved to a temporary detention center in Oklahoma despite a federal judge’s request that he remain in New York to assist in his appeal. 

The FTX co-founder is at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City, according to the Bureau of Prisons website on Thursday. 

The 32-year old crypto whiz spent much of last year preparing for his trial from a cell at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York. Judge Lewis Kaplan, who sentenced Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison, recommended on Wednesday that he stay in Brooklyn “until his appeal has been fully briefed to facilitate access to appellate counsel.”

“We appreciate the court’s consideration, and hope that the BOP will follow the court’s recommendation so that Mr. Bankman-Fried can have access to his appellate counsel,” said Mark Botnick, a spokesman for Bankman-Fried.

The judge’s order came several weeks after Bankman-Fried requested that he remain at MDC, a facility he complained about repeatedly last year. He could eventually end up serving the remainder of his sentence at a prison closer to his family in California.

The Oklahoma facility is designated as a transfer center, according to the Bureau of Prisons, and is only designed to hold inmates for a period of four-to-six weeks. 

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