A jury is now deciding Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX.
The question of whether the former billionaire committed fraud in connection with the disappearance of billions of dollars from his clients’ accounts on the cryptocurrency exchange he founded four years ago was put to vote on Thursday afternoon.
Following a judge’s explanation of the statute that will guide the jury through the seven charges brought against the MIT graduate and son of Stanford University law professors, the Manhattan federal court jury got to work.
Throughout the trial, which lasted a month, Bankman-Fried, 31, gave testimony claiming he didn’t scam thousands of investors worldwide.
After FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022, other significant players in the market failed, wiping out billions of dollars in customer wealth. This had a negative impact on the cryptocurrency market as a whole.
In December of last year, Bankman-Fried was extradited from the Bahamas to New York to stand trial for fraud. Since August, when Judge Lewis A. Kaplan declared that the former billionaire had attempted to sway possible trial witnesses and could no longer be released on the $250 million personal recognizance bond that required him to stay at his parents’ Palo Alto, California, home, he has been incarcerated.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon made a rebuttal argument earlier on Thursday. The closing arguments had started a day earlier.
She said that while Bankman-Fried was stealing from thousands of customers worldwide, he had repeatedly assured them that their money on the FTX exchange was secure. The former CEO, she claimed, was constantly requesting “billions and billions of dollars more from his customers to spend on gaining influence and power.”
Sassoon, who conducted a cross-examination of Bankman-Fried late last week and early this week, stated that while Bankman-Fried had aspirations of becoming US president, his primary goal was to establish the largest cryptocurrency exchange globally. FTX was the second-largest at its height.
While supervising the embezzlement of FTX funds, she claimed he “dazzled investors and Congress and the media, and worked around the clock to build a successful business”.
The prosecutor stated, “He took steps to hide it, lied about it, and knew it was wrong.”
Lawyer Mark Cohen of Bankman-Fried stated in his closing argument on Wednesday that his client “may have moved too slowly” when it became apparent that his 2017-founded cryptocurrency fund, Alameda Research, was unable to return billions of dollars borrowed from FTX upon customer demand.
Cohen speculated, “He might have hesitated.” “But he always thought that Alameda had sufficient assets on the exchange and off the exchange to cover all of its liabilities.”
- How the prosecution portrayed Sam Bankman-Fried,
- Jurors are required to evaluate a display of arrogance as the Sam Bankman-Fried trial approaches its final arguments.
He further stated: “Business decisions made in good faith are not grounds to convict.”
Cohen advised jurors to keep in mind Bankman-Tried’s testimony while they examine the material.
“When Sam testified before you, he told you the truth, the messy truth, that in the real world miscommunications happen, mistakes happen, delays happen,” Cohen stated. “There were errors, lapses in corporate risk management controls, and poor decision-making. That is not illegal in any way.
In the event that Bankman-Fried is found guilty of the seven charges of fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering, he could spend more than a century in prison.
