Minutes before he was supposed to testify to the jury on Thursday, FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried faced a delay from Judge Lewis Kaplan, who dismissed the jury to determine how much of Bankman-Fried’s statements about the lawyers’ involvement in the alleged FTX fraudulent transactions were relevant to the trial.
Bankman-Fried then gave a preview of his testimony to the judge on the witness stand. Kaplan’s final decision could be crucial for his defense.
During the hearing, FTX pushed back on prosecutors’ claims that he and other FTX executives used apps that automatically delete messages to cover up wrongdoing, and said he tried to disable these features at the time the firm went bankrupt in November 2022.
Bankman-Fried is charged with orchestrating a fraudulent scheme that siphoned up to $10 billion from FTX’s customers, with prosecutors saying he used the stolen funds for political contributions, real estate purchases, and other extravagant spending.
Bankman-Fried wants jurors to believe that he acted with lawyers’ awareness – not necessarily that he had legal approval, but that he had no fraudulent intent. The former CEO of FTX’s claims counter those of the firm’s former top lawyer Sun.
Sun testified earlier in the trial that he only found out in November 2022 that Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund Alameda Research was taking billions in customer money from FTX.
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- Source: https://www.cryptocompare.com/email-updates/daily/2023/oct/27/
