Bankman-Fried dodged questions on his recollection of creating these claims, usually opting as a substitute for: “No, however I could have.”
The statements have been on the coronary heart of federal prosecutor Danielle Sassoon’s presentation as she showcased them to the jury. The defendant has given prosecutors a whole lot of materials to work with — each on the stand and within the volumes of commentary he supplied as his enterprise rose and after it crashed.
In her cross-examination, Sassoon in contrast Bankman-Fried’s statements on social media and in interviews, in addition to his appearances earlier than congressional hearings, along with his non-public feedback, which confirmed disdain for his colleagues in addition to for his followers.
At one level, in a textual content to his inside circle of his associates, he referred to authorities regulators with a vulgarity. In one other textual content, he crudely disparaged a subset of his followers at the same time as he publicly courted their belief.
Bankman-Fried appeared on edge as prosecutors questioned him. The defendant took on a nervous and higher-than-usually pitched tone, usually pausing for a number of seconds earlier than answering sure or no questions.
Authorities attorneys seem set to grill Bankman-Fried on the discrepancies between the model of occasions he described to jurors beginning Friday and the starkly completely different narrative supplied by the prosecution’s three key witnesses, all former insiders and shut associates.
These former high executives in Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire all have pleaded responsible to crimes they are saying he directed. They spent weeks describing their ex-boss because the mastermind of a scheme to defraud FTX prospects, testifying that he knowingly tapped billions of {dollars} in buyer funds to pay for dangerous investments, actual property acquisitions, and political contributions.
Bankman-Fried insisted on Friday he constantly acted in good religion and solely discovered that his hedge fund, Alameda Analysis, owed $8 billion to FTX within the month earlier than the companies collapsed. He acknowledged making errors — conceding “lots of people bought damage” — however insisted he neither defrauded anybody nor took buyer funds.
His protection legal professional additionally tried to color Bankman-Fried as a sympathetic character to the jury, displaying texts the place he appeared to consolation a kind of insiders-turned-witnesses, Nishad Singh, whereas FTX was collapsing.
Bankman-Fried has pleaded not responsible to seven prison counts, together with fraud and cash laundering. If convicted, the 31-year-old might spend many years in jail.
