Disgraced former billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried finally had his say in his high profile trial, considered to be ‘one of the biggest fraud prosecutions in history’.
But, according to all reports, he failed to score any significant wins, and now will have to face on Monday a brutal cross-examination by Manhattan federal prosecutors, and also a mysterious “rebuttal” witness to contradict his claims.
The crypto bro showed no emotions as he tried to evade of for his alleged $10 billion fraud, claiming it went under because of ‘mistakes’, not crimes.
The New York Post reported:
“’We are expecting a brief rebuttal case’, a member of the federal prosecution team told Judge Lewis Kaplan after jurors were sent home for the day. The feds did not identify the witness or explain how they would ‘rebut’ aspects of the accused crypto crook’s account.
The accused crypto thief — who is charged with splurging with FTX user funds on such luxurious goodies as millions of dollars in Bahamas real estate — testified Friday, ‘We thought we could build the best product on the market’, when asked by his lawyer why he founded his company. The lawyer, Mark Cohen, replied, ‘Did it work out that way?’ Bankman-Fried […] responded a flat, nasally monotone, ‘No, it turned out basically the opposite of that. A lot of people got hurt’.”
SBF displayed little to no remorse in his testimony, as he claimed that FTX had ‘significant oversights’ in its ‘risk management’.
“He also accused his ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison, who served as CEO of his hedge fund Alameda Research, of not ‘hedging’ the company’s bets months before the feds say Bankman-Fried stole FTX funds to pay off Alameda’s multibillion-dollar debt.”
Bankman-Fried said he made ‘a number of small mistakes and a number of large mistakes’ while running FTX, but he denied ‘taking’ customer funds.
“’Did you defraud anyone?’ Bankman-Fried’s lawyer asked him shortly after he took the stand just before 10 a.m. ‘No, I did not’, the defendant replied.”
He also tried to distance himself from computer code that allowed Alameda to ‘borrow’ FTX users’ funds.
Mostly he tried to sell the image of a young entrepreneur who did the best he could.
Washington Post reported:
“The first three hours of his testimony saw no revelations as his lawyers worked to bolster a narrative Bankman-Fried has promoted since the November collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange, FTX: Mistakes were made, but he always acted in good faith.
Bankman-Fried gave long, rambling answers to the questions posed by defense attorney Mark Cohen. On multiple occasions, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan asked him to stop talking. At one point, Kaplan admonished Bankman-Fried for trying to provide his own definition of market manipulation. ‘You will take what I say manipulation means’, the judge told him and the jury.”
Bankman-Fried will be the only witness called by the defense team.
“Bankman-Fried spent the first hour of Friday’s testimony recounting his upbringing, which included summer math camps and living in a college fraternity that was ‘co-ed, nerdy and dry’. He told of his time working as a trader for Jane Street, and the early days of founding his Alameda Research hedge fund out of an Airbnb filled with cardboard boxes.
[…] Bankman-Fried said he handed the reins of Alameda to former girlfriend Caroline Ellison and Sam Trabucco in the summer of 2021, when he became too busy with FTX to manage the hedge fund’s day-to-day operations. Bankman-Fried said he envisioned Ellison as the people manager and Trabucco as the risk manager, but when Trabucco left the firm soon after for an ‘early retirement’, Ellison was left managing both. When Cohen asked whether FTX had a risk management team, Bankman-Fried said, ‘We sure should have, but no we did not’.”
In his testimony, Bankman-Fried tries to accomplish the difficult task of reversing, in the minds of the jury, the weeks of hearing damning testimony from the disgraced crypto bro’s top deputies.
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