SBF's very bad afternoon in federal court
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Sam Bankman-Fried. Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Sam Bankman-Fried's first words on the witness stand were: "Good afternoon."
- It was anything but that for the fallen CEO.
Driving the news: The SBF trial picked up again Thursday with the headliner himself taking the stand to give Judge Lewis Kaplan and others in the courtroom a preview of his testimony to help the judge decide what topics would be allowed to come up during the real thing tomorrow.
- The jurors were excused shortly after 2 PM and given the afternoon off.
- SBF took the stand for nearly three hours after that.
- Judge Kaplan will rule on the matter of what topics to allow on Friday morning.
Zoom in: SBF, the founder and ex-CEO of the now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, has plead "not guilty" to the seven counts of fraud and conspiracy against him. The 31-year old also founded the hedge fund Alameda Research, the entity that was allegedly allowed to borrow funds from FTX, a revelation that ultimately led to the crypto exchange's death spiral.
- The U.S. government is arguing that SBF knew about the borrowed funds and had fraudulent intent with the arrangement.
- His performance on the stand fell well below that of the testimonies given by his lieutenants Gary Wang, Caroline Ellison and Nishad Singh.
- All of them blamed him for depleting FTX customer deposits.
Details: Defense attorney Mark Cohen took a stab at pushing the "advice of counsel" strategy, meaning Bankman-Fried was merely abiding by his lawyers' direction ahead of the company's spectacular collapse.
- But SBF's ability on Thursday to explain how his lawyers were involved was vague, and lacked the details that the U.S. government's witnesses had in spades.
- Judge Kaplan took over asking questions for Cohen, prodding for specifics, but none came.
Of note: It was difficult to hear a clean quote from SBF — the stenographer at one point had to ask him to restate what he said several times just to understand what he was saying.
- When the U.S. government's cross-examination hit, SBF seemed to tap-dance around the answers.
- He was scolded for using legalese, wondering aloud whether a question was "in scope."
- Kaplan at one point had to order him to listen to the U.S. prosecutor Danielle Sassoon's questions and answer them directly.
What they're saying: "Part of the problem is that the witness has what I'll simply call an interesting way of responding to questions for the moment," the judge said.
