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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 charged with seven counts of fraud and cash laundering within the Southern District of New York court docket home.
At court docket within the Southern District of New York, Bankman-Fried wore an outsized grey swimsuit and a purple tie. He arrived on the courthouse round 9:30 a.m., along with his fingers folded in entrance of him, nodding at those that he made eye contact with. All through the morning, Bankman-Fried appeared relaxed, turning round to face the again of the court docket and infrequently smiling at his attorneys.
This marks the second time Bankman-Fried has spoken out publicly within the courtroom after saying “sure,” on the primary day in response to Choose Lewis Kaplan asking if he understood he had the correct to testify if he needed to.
His first phrases spoken on the stand Thursday had been: “Good afternoon.”
However in contrast to the remainder of the trial, Kaplan despatched the jury residence. He first needed to assessment Bankman-Fried’s feedback earlier than figuring out whether or not that testimony might be shared with jurors. “I haven’t had a listening to of this nature in a very long time, if ever,” Kaplan mentioned.
As soon as on the stand, Bankman-Fried was jittery and fast to reply to the questions his protection lawyer, Mark Cohen, was asking. However when it got here to for Danielle Sassoon, assistant U.S. legal professional for the SDNY, to cross study, he was slower to reply and couldn’t keep in mind lots of the details.
One of many areas Kaplan needed to listen to about was the truth that Bankman-Fried relied on authorized counsel to draft phrases of service and information retention insurance policies, which included utilizing Sign to share inside communication.
Bankman-Fried mentioned the “huge image takeaway” for these insurance policies was that particular information like KYC insurance policies, regulatory mandates, compliance and formal accounting required retention. However not components like drafted defective stability sheets, that Caroline Ellison testified about weeks earlier.