It is 7 days 4 of Sam Bankman-Fried’s demo, and on Thursday the previous FTX CEO took the stand to testify on his own behalf. Bankman-Fried is being billed with seven counts of fraud and money laundering at the Southern District of New York courthouse.
In the course of court docket, Bankman-Fried wore an oversized gray match and a purple tie. He arrived at the courthouse about 9:30 a.m., with his palms folded in entrance of him, nodding at these he made eye call with. All over the early morning, Bankman-Fried seemed peaceful, turning around to confront the again of the courtroom and at times smiling at his lawyers.
This marks the 2nd time Bankman-Fried has spoken out publicly in the courtroom right after expressing sure on the very first day in response to Decide Lewis Kaplan inquiring if he comprehended he had the appropriate to testify if he desired to.
His very first words spoken on the stand Thursday were: “Good afternoon.”
But compared with the rest of the demo, Kaplan sent the jury household. He very first wanted to evaluate Bankman-Fried’s responses before analyzing no matter if that testimony could be shared with jurors. “I have not experienced a hearing of this nature in a very long time, if at any time,” Kaplan claimed.
As soon as on the stand, Bankman-Fried was jittery and rapid to answer to the queries his defense lawyer, Mark Cohen, was inquiring. But when it arrived time for Danielle Sassoon, assistant U.S. legal professional for the SDNY, to cross-examine, he was slower to answer and stated he couldn’t bear in mind lots of of the info.
One particular of the areas Kaplan needed to hear about was Bankman-Fried relying on lawful counsel to draft terms of service and facts retention procedures, which involved applying Sign to share internal conversation.
Bankman-Fried stated the “big picture takeaway” for these procedures was that particular knowledge like KYC (know your consumer) procedures, regulatory mandates, compliance and official accounting essential retention. But not things like drafted defective equilibrium sheets, which Caroline Ellison testified about months before.
