the defense is really trying the “SBF couldn’t have intentionally stolen the money because he didn’t spend it on a yacht or a lambo” strategy
just a $30M penthouse, private jets, a $16M house for his parents plus $10M in cash, chartered planes for their amazon packages… https://t.co/NA3DqkjWjn pic.twitter.com/zFbw7Zo1CJ
— Molly White (@molly0xFFF) October 5, 2023
also some of the money DID go to a yacht! $2.5 million for former Alameda co-CEO Sam Trabucco’s boat, which btw is called “Soak My Deck” pic.twitter.com/jWdYgu2EOr
— Molly White (@molly0xFFF) October 5, 2023
After reading her newsletter today, I subscribed to Molly White’s substack. (Even though I can’t keep up with reading all the subscriptions I already have… )
After recapping the testimony we’ve heard so far, I ask the question on everyone’s minds: will Sam Bankman-Fried testify?https://t.co/JDZt2NdIMP
— Molly White (@molly0xFFF) October 6, 2023
According to Sam Bankman-Fried’s defense attorneys, he was just following the move fast and break things mantra that has led the technology industry for decades. “Sam and his colleagues were building the plane as they were flying it,” explained lead defense lawyer Mark Cohen. He was “a math nerd who didn’t drink or party”, Cohen went on, apparently hoping the jurors believe teetotalers to be inherently incapable of crime.
Sure, maybe Bankman-Fried hadn’t hired a Chief Risk Officer — a piece of information Cohen bafflingly decided to offer up himself — but hey, it was a new company! Well okay, maybe not that new (Alameda Research was five years old when the companies collapsed). Oh, and Caroline Ellison had refused to hedge trades over at Alameda Research, he said, previewing the argument that everything was her fault, not Bankman-Fried’s. “Sam didn’t steal from anyone,” said Cohen. “There was no theft.”
I’m not sure if “well, sure, they built their empire out of gasoline-drenched toothpicks and duct tape and then were shocked when $8 billion went up in flames, but he didn’t really mean to light fire to everyone’s money”, is a case-winning strategy to put in front of a jury, but hey, I’m not the superstar defense attorney here.
The government’s story goes a little differently. “All of it was built on lies,” declared Assistant U.S. Attorney Thane Rehn. FTX told customers their money was safe, even paying American celebrities to repeat the claim in multi-billion dollar television advertisements.
Instead, customer money went into one big piggybank, shared between FTX and all the other companies under his control, from which Bankman-Fried pulled fistfuls to spend on venture investments to political and charitable donations to sports sponsorship deals to luxury Bahamian real estate…
The big question on everyone’s mind is: will Bankman-Fried testify? I doubt his lawyers want him to, as he is both abrasive and evasive even on his best days. He likes to try to talk circles around interviewers — a tactic that may pay off with friendly tech journos or the crypto crowd, but is less likely to work for sworn testimony in front of an experienced cross-examiner.
Bankman-Fried, on the other hand, has shown nothing but conviction that he can talk his way out of this, if he just gets the chance. He spent weeks after the collapse talking to anyone who would listen, from journalists like Andrew Ross Sorkin to random people on Twitter like me [I13]. That’s been muted lately, but more likely due to the gag order [I35] and subsequent return to jail [I36] rather than any change of heart on his part. Meanwhile, the judge has told him that he has the right to testify, even if his lawyers don’t want him to. That temptation may ultimately prove too strong for Bankman-Fried.
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