Sam Bankman-Fried protection group fails to land a blow as he takes stand

Sam Bankman-Fried took the stand in a New York courtroom on Thursday, as he and his protection group auditioned their finest authorized materials for U.S. District Decide Lewis Kaplan.

The previous crypto billionaire had initially been scheduled to testify earlier than the jury, however the choose despatched jurors house early to think about whether or not some features of Bankman-Fried’s deliberate testimony, associated to authorized recommendation he obtained whereas operating FTX, could be admissible in court docket.

In a kind of mini-hearing throughout the trial, protection lawyer Mark Cohen guided Bankman-Fried via a sequence of questions designed to showcase the protection’s strongest arguments of his innocence, together with suggesting that he relied on FTX’s former chief regulatory officer and in-house lawyer, Dan Friedberg, to information some actions that the federal government claims are unlawful.

Bankman-Fried faces seven prison counts, together with wire fraud, securities fraud and cash laundering, that would land him in jail for greater than 100 years if he’s convicted at his trial in Manhattan federal court docket. Bankman-Fried, the son of two Stanford authorized students, has pleaded not responsible within the case.

“Earlier than the trial, I used to be satisfied that SBF was headed to near-certain conviction on critical felony counts, and it was obvious to me that his protection group had not give you something that would derail that end result,” stated Renato Mariotti, a former prosecutor within the U.S. Justice Division’s Securities & Commodities Fraud Part and now a trial accomplice in Chicago with Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner.

“Nothing that has occurred through the trial has modified my view. The proof of his guilt seems to be overwhelming,” added Mariotti.

Within the final 4 weeks of trial, a number of members of the C-suite at crypto trade FTX, and its sister hedge fund Alameda Analysis, have all singled out Bankman-Fried because the mastermind behind the scenes. A number of of those witnesses have themselves pleaded responsible to a number of costs, together with Bankman-Fried’s ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison, who faces a most sentence of 110 years for crimes dedicated whereas she was the CEO of Alameda.

Prosecutors have additionally entered proof to corroborate witness accounts, together with encrypted Sign messages and different inner paperwork that seem to point out Bankman-Fried orchestrating the spending of FTX buyer cash.

The protection’s case — which is comprised of Bankman-Fried’s upcoming testimony together with that of two witnesses who each wrapped in simply over an hour on Thursday morning — hinges on whether or not the jury believes the defendant when he takes the stand.

“He has all the time been satisfied that he is the neatest man within the room and that he can discuss his method out of any downside,” continued Mariotti.

“However the largest downside with SBF’s testimony will likely be SBF himself. On condition that the core subject will likely be intent to defraud, SBF must be portraying himself as clueless, inattentive, and in over his head. However for years he had portrayed himself as a visionary genius, and I do not anticipate that to alter on the stand,” he stated.

Decide Kaplan beforehand dominated that Bankman-Fried’s legal professionals couldn’t make a so-called recommendation of counsel argument of their opening remarks since it would threat prejudicing the jury. On Thursday, Kaplan despatched the jury house early to rethink in a closed-door session whether or not to permit this line of testimony.

Beneath questioning led by Cohen, Bankman-Fried appeared to put a lot of the prison blame on FTX’s chief regulatory officer, Friedberg, in addition to exterior counsel Fenwick & West, which suggested the crypto trade. Bankman-Fried spoke about Friedberg’s energetic involvement in all the things from the company-wide auto deletion coverage on messaging apps like Sign, to the creation of Alameda’s North Dimension checking account, the place billions of {dollars} value of FTX buyer cash was funneled.

The previous FTX chief additionally stated that the a whole lot of tens of millions of {dollars} in private loans to himself and different founders of the platform had been structured via promissory notes drafted by his in-house authorized group and mentioned in live performance along with his basic counsel and Friedberg. Having the blessing of his authorized counsel was one thing that SBF stated he “took consolation in.”

Whereas taking the stand affords Bankman-Fried the chance to inform his facet of the story to jurors, it additionally opens the door for federal prosecutors to go for the jugular in cross-examination. Following damning testimony from Bankman-Fried’s closest ex-confidantes and prime deputies, protection attorneys for the FTX founder have didn’t flip the narrative in cross-examining key witnesses or to undermine probably the most troubling allegations concerning their consumer.

Certainly, Bankman-Fried’s follow run on Thursday was powerful to observe. Whereas he got here throughout as direct and credible in his direct examination, the grilling by prosecutors was aggressive and efficient. At a number of factors, the choose appeared exasperated by Bankman-Fried’s responses, as soon as saying that the defendant had an “fascinating method of answering questions.”

The defendant’s demeanor flipped 180 levels when U.S. assistant lawyer Danielle Sassoon started her questioning. He swiveled backwards and forwards in his chair, nervously shook a bit of paper he held in his palms, repeatedly grabbed for his water bottle earlier than responding, and skirted quite a lot of questions by saying he could not recall what had occurred.

Decide Kaplan interjected at one level, telling the defendant to “hearken to the query and reply the query straight.”

On Friday morning, we’ll get a ruling from the choose on what’s admissible from the protection’s want record of subjects – in addition to Bankman-Fried’s debut earlier than the jury from the stand.

“On condition that he seems headed for defeat, taking the stand is usually a ‘Hail Mary’ of kinds,” stated Mariotti.

“SBF will likely be hamstrung by his many prior statements, which may very well be used to question him. It will likely be troublesome for SBF to weave his testimony round these prior statements.”

This week’s testimony is simply the most recent instance of the protection group’s battle to land a blow within the prison fraud case.

Prosecutors spent 4 weeks of the trial strolling former leaders of FTX and Alameda Analysis via particular actions taken by their boss that resulted in purchasers shedding billions of {dollars} late final yr.

In attempting to poke holes in witness accounts, Bankman-Fried’s legal professionals have repeatedly jumped round, unable to keep up a constant timeline or coherent argument, whereas additionally opening the door for witnesses to supply extra testimony in furtherance of what they’d beforehand instructed the jury.

The scattershot method is doubtlessly troubling for Bankman-Fried, who’s relying on his protection attorneys to maintain him out of jail in what may very well be a life sentence if convicted. The central declare the protection has been unable to knock down is that Bankman-Fried knowingly used billions of {dollars} in FTX buyer funds to pay for his lavish life-style, to make political donations and, most dramatically, to cowl a gaping gap in Alameda’s books following the cratering of cryptocurrency costs final yr.

Cohen, a co-founder of the New York regulation agency Cohen & Gresser, is being joined at trial by Christian Everdell, a member of the agency’s white collar protection group. Cohen, a graduate of the College of Michigan Legislation College, began his agency 21 years in the past and beforehand served as an assistant U.S. lawyer for the Japanese District of New York. Everdell began at Cohen & Gresser in 2017 after virtually a decade working as a prosecutor for the Southern District of New York.

— CNBC’s Daybreak Giel contributed to this report.