- The trial of Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) is currently not going in his favor.
- Former allies turned government witnesses have made revelations that are complicating the work of his defense team.
Things are not looking so good for Sam Bankman-Fried’s defense team with the rigorous fast-paced trial and the presence of a no-nonsense judge. The prosecution team seems to have pulled together a group of strong witnesses who have done nothing but testify against the “manchild” billionaire. A significant portion of these witnesses have pleaded guilty to the charges levied against them and agreed to cooperate with the authorities.
In the second week of Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial, top former FTX executives like Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang, and Adam Yedidia took the witness stand. Sadly, all of them pointed to the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) as the ringleader responsible for the disastrous collapse of the popular FTX Derivatives Exchange.
Ex-FTX developer Yedidia spoke about his discovery of the misuse of FTX funds for its sister trading company Alameda Research. He stated that there was a software bug that caused a miscalculation in the fiscal balance of both firms. Ultimately, the miscalculation led to a $16 billion misinterpretation in the FTX balance sheet.
Ellison, the former Alameda Research CEO and one-time romantic partner to SBF, disclosed a cryptic message from Bankman-Fried instructing her to sell BTC if it exceeds $20,000. This revelation suggests a calculated effort to prevent Bitcoin’s valuation from surpassing the critical $20,000 threshold. She also talked about SBF’s plan to raise funds by selling FTX equity to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
In Ellison’s online journal which is titled “Things Sam is Freaking Out About”, she talked about some of Bankman-Fried’s other lofty plans. This includes the intention to turn regulators against leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance and also acquire Snapchat.
Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin J. O’Brien, who’s now a specialist in white-collar criminal defense reiterated that the strength of the prosecution’s multiple key witnesses has played a huge role in the present state of the trial.
SBF’s Defense Team to Search For Loophole Amongst Witnesses
O’Brien highlighted that every defense lawyer tries their best to gain a toehold in reasonable doubt. They usually look for “just something they can argue to the jury, and it’s very hard to see how that’s going to materialize here,” O’Brien said, adding that. “It seems to me this is a very difficult chore for the defense.”
The trial is designed to span for six weeks, and it is imminent that more revelation will unfold. During this time, it is likely that SBF’s defense attorneys will seize every opportunity to take charge and present their case in a convincing way. One way to achieve this and present their version of events would be to catch one of the witnesses in a lie. The attorneys could also try to fish out a witness who is trying to conceal a personal dealing with SBF that is related to the implosion of FTX.
With a number of witnesses pleading guilty, it becomes hard to cross-examine such a person, per a statement by O’Brien and the court is also preventing this from happening.
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