<\/p>\n
After a few hours of unproductive cross-examination, Sam Bankman-Fried\u2019s defense team took a different approach: see if the judge will throw them a bone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a motion filed during Thursday\u2019s lunch break, where the court recessed for just over an hour, lead defense attorneys Mark Cohen and Christian Everdell asked senior judge Lewis Kaplan for permission to probe the government\u2019s witnesses a little further.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe defense should not be precluded from \u2018fleshing out\u2019 its theories through cross-examination,\u201d Cohen and Everdell wrote in their lunchtime letter to Kaplan, adding that their prior attempts have been met with objections from the government.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bankman-Fried\u2019s team hopes Kaplan will help them get a head start on proving their case by allowing questions during the cross-examination that rebut the government\u2019s theory and instead support its own.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA key element of the defense is that no theft occurred,\u201d the defense wrote in the motion, adding that the prosecution has the burden to prove Bankman-Fried stole FTX customer funds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The defense\u2019s motion also asks that only the prosecution\u2019s expert witnesses \u2014 the government has two: a professor and Ph.D. \u2014 be allowed to submit testimony for fact. Other lay witnesses, like former customers and employees, should only be permitted to speak on their personal experiences.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The language of the motion should not have come as a surprise to the judge, who had just hours earlier refereed a dispute between Cohen and lead prosecutor Danielle Sassoon over the same issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Moments into his cross-examination of government star witness Caroline Ellison, Alameda\u2019s former CEO, Cohen pushed her on what exactly Bankman-Fried had shared about problems Alameda faced in its early days. Sassoon objected to the line of questioning, arguing it had no relevance and was based on hearsay.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYour Honor, we are not limited to the government\u2019s theory of the case,\u201d Cohen said during the first of several sidebar discussions Thursday. \u201cWe are allowed to put on a defense.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Cohen added that he had never had a judge direct him to limit his cross examinations to only what the prosecution had brought up during the direct line of questioning, Kaplan let his growing frustration show.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t think of that actually occurring in this case,\u201d the judge told Cohen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When the defense attorney backed down, saying he \u201cwithdrew\u201d his remark, Kaplan continued with his admonitions. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd properly so,\u201d he replied to Cohen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The prosecution is expected to issue its response to the defense\u2019s Thursday motion on Friday morning. The government had originally told Kaplan that they could probably get it in before midnight on Thursday, but Kaplan shut this down.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to read it after 8:00[pm],\u201d he said moments before dismissing counsel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bankman-Fried\u2019s criminal trial continues in Manhattan Friday morning with Zac Prince, founder of now-bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi, taking the stand.<\/p>\n
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