It’s week 4 of Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial, and on Thursday the previous FTX CEO took the stand to testify on his personal behalf. Bankman-Fried is being charged with seven counts of fraud and cash laundering on the Southern District of New York courthouse.
Throughout court docket, Bankman-Fried wore an outsized grey swimsuit and a purple tie. He arrived on the courthouse round 9:30 a.m., together with his fingers folded in entrance of him, nodding at these he made eye contact with. All through the morning, Bankman-Fried appeared relaxed, turning round to face the again of the court docket and sometimes smiling at his legal professionals.
This marks the second time Bankman-Fried has spoken out publicly within the courtroom after saying sure on the first day in response to Decide Lewis Kaplan asking if he understood he had the fitting to testify if he needed to.
His first phrases spoken on the stand Thursday have been: “Good afternoon.”
However not like the remainder of the trial, Kaplan despatched the jury house. He first needed to assessment Bankman-Fried’s feedback earlier than figuring out whether or not that testimony could possibly be shared with jurors. “I haven’t had a listening to of this nature in a very long time, if ever,” Kaplan stated.
As soon as on the stand, Bankman-Fried was jittery and fast to answer the questions his protection lawyer, Mark Cohen, was asking. However when it got here time for Danielle Sassoon, assistant U.S. legal professional for the SDNY, to cross-examine, he was slower to reply and stated he couldn’t keep in mind most of the info.
One of many areas Kaplan needed to listen to about was Bankman-Fried counting on legal counsel to draft phrases of service and information retention insurance policies, which included utilizing Sign to share inside communication.
Bankman-Fried stated the “large image takeaway” for these insurance policies was that particular information like KYC (know your shopper) insurance policies, regulatory mandates, compliance and formal accounting required retention. However not components like drafted defective stability sheets, which Caroline Ellison testified about weeks earlier.
