Unlock the Editor’s Digest at no cost
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favorite tales on this weekly publication.
Sam Bankman-Fried intends to take the witness stand in his felony case over the multibillion-dollar collapse of crypto change FTX, a high-stakes bid by the previous tycoon to attraction to the New York jury that would quickly condemn him to life in jail.
A lawyer for the 31-year-old, who has sat silently for 3 weeks as a number of of his former colleagues testified towards him, confirmed in a courtroom convention on Wednesday that his shopper would reply questions beneath oath, probably as early as Thursday.
“Our shopper can also be going to be testifying,” Mark Cohen stated, including that the defence might relaxation as quickly as the top of this week.
Bankman-Fried’s FTX change collapsed final November, leaving an $8bn gap in buyer funds. The founder and former chief govt is contesting fees together with wire fraud and cash laundering.
The choice by Bankman-Fried to testify in his personal defence goes towards the recommendation routinely given to white-collar defendants, who’re instructed such a transfer is more likely to backfire. Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes took the stand in her felony trial in 2021, solely to be discovered responsible by a Californian jury and sentenced to greater than a decade behind bars.
However Bankman-Fried has adhered to his personal authorized playbook ever for the reason that implosion of his crypto empire. Within the months main as much as the trial, he granted interviews to journalists and the writer Michael Lewis, contacted a possible witness and leaked non-public paperwork to the New York Occasions in an alleged try and intimidate Caroline Ellison, his former colleague and girlfriend, who’s co-operating with the federal government.
Whereas prosecutors have sought to color Bankman-Fried as a serial liar who stole billions of {dollars} from FTX prospects to make dangerous bets whereas concealing his actions from traders, his attorneys have argued that their shopper was performing in “good religion” and was blindsided by a downturn within the crypto market and a mendacious competitor.
Over the course of the trial, jurors have been introduced with proof that Bankman-Fried ordered colleagues to write down code that allowed his crypto buying and selling agency Alameda Analysis to dip into $10bn value of FTX buyer funds, even instructing Ellison to create seven “different” stability sheets that disguised this association from lenders.
Legal professionals for Bankman-Fried indicated they might name three additional witnesses together with a lawyer from the Bahamas, a database knowledgeable, and somebody who might stroll the jury by way of FTX’s organisational chart.
