A federal decide has sided with the USA Division of Justice in motions geared toward precluding the testimony of seven witnesses on behalf of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, or SBF.
In a Sept. 21 submitting with U.S. District Courtroom for the Southern District of New York, Choose Lewis Kaplan granted in limine motions from prosecutors which might bar sure witnesses from testifying in SBF’s prison trial. Kaplan supplied completely different authorized grounds for granting the DoJ’s motions in opposition to sure witnesses, which included the proposed testimony being “by no means clear”, irrelevant to the trial, or would in any other case seemingly obfuscate the info of the case for the jury.
The witnesses at difficulty within the prison case included Thomas Bishop, Brian Kim, Bradley Smith, Lawrence Akka, Joseph Pimbley, Peter Vinella , and Andrew Di Wu, a lot of whom are professionals within the authorized area. Courtroom filings from Aug. 28 prompt that SBF’s authorized staff may have paid upwards of $1,200 per hour for his or her testimony.
Kaplan left the door open for SBF’s protection staff to name among the people in response to testimony to witnesses for the U.S. authorities. Nevertheless, he denied a movement from Bankman-Fried’s attorneys which may have excluded testimony from Peter Easton, a College of Notre Dame accountancy professor, who will converse on FTX buyer fiat accounts.
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Bankman-Fried is scheduled to look earlier than Kaplan for his first prison trial on Oct. 3, the place he’ll face 7 prison prices associated to the alleged misuse of consumer funds at FTX and Alameda Analysis. He’ll face one other 5 criminals prices in a March 2024 trial. SBF has pleaded not responsible to all counts.
Since a federal decide revoked his bail in August, SBF has been largely remanded to the Metropolitan Detention Middle in Brooklyn till the beginning of his trial. On Sept. 21, a three-judge panel denied an appeal from the previous FTX CEO’s authorized staff arguing for early launch largely on First Modification grounds.
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