FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried kicks off fraud trial defense case
© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, arrives at court as lawyers push to persuade the judge overseeing his fraud case not to jail him ahead of trial, at a courthouse in New York, U.S., August 11, 2023.
After the prosecution rested its case after presenting 12 days of testimony, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan denied a defense request to acquit Bankman-Fried before the case goes to the jury. Defense lawyer Mark Cohen argued that prosecutors had not set forth"viable legal theories" of wire fraud, which prosecutor Nicolas Roos disputed.
That would include any testimony about the involvement of FTX lawyers in structuring loans from Alameda to FTX executives, which prosecutors have said was a key way the defendant and others took funds from unwitting customers. Legal experts have said Bankman-Fried has little to lose by bucking conventional wisdom and testifying, given weeks of testimony against him by insiders painting an unflattering portrait of his character.
The first defense witness, Rolle, testified that the day after FTX declared bankruptcy on Nov. 11, 2022, authorities in the Bahamas - where FTX was based - directed Bankman-Fried to hand over remaining assets to regulators in the Caribbean country.
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