{"id":174896,"date":"2023-10-16T11:36:05","date_gmt":"2023-10-16T06:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/?p=174896"},"modified":"2023-10-16T11:36:05","modified_gmt":"2023-10-16T06:06:05","slug":"sam-bankman-frieds-defense-wants-more-latitude-in-questioning-witnesses-crypto-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/sam-bankman-frieds-defense-wants-more-latitude-in-questioning-witnesses-crypto-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Bankman-Fried’s Defense Wants More Latitude In Questioning Witnesses – Crypto News"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Lawyers for disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) are moving to expand the scope of their questioning for the prosecution\u2019s next round of witnesses after a bruising two weeks of testimony by members of the mogul\u2019s inner circle.<\/span><\/p>\n

SBF’s lawyers raised concerns with what they said were restrictions on their available lines of questioning with government witnesses that they say block them from making a case for their client. To correct this, the defense asked for more room to explore defense theories through cross-examination\u2014and to bar prosecutors from relying on lay witnesses for expert testimony.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe government has objected to the defense\u2019s effort to ask questions of government witnesses that strayed from the government\u2019s conception, but the defense should not be precluded from \u2018fleshing out\u2019 its theories through cross-examination,\u201d the lawyers wrote in their filing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This request comes as Bankman-Fried\u2019s trial enters its third week, and following testimony from a parade of witnesses who recounted episodes where they were directed by the FTX chief to mislead investors, clients and auditors on the firm\u2019s health and its relationship with Alameda Research\u2014also founded by Bankman-Fried. Caroline Ellison, Alameda\u2019s CEO and Bankman-Fried\u2019s former lover, emotionally recounted her relief at <\/span>not having to \u201clie anymore\u201d<\/span><\/a> after detailing the pressure she said Bankman-Fried put on her to do so.<\/span><\/p>\n

By shaping the testimony of upcoming witnesses, the defense is likely looking to prevent more damage to Bankman-Fried\u2019s image in the eyes of jurors, said Daniel Silva, a former assistant U.S. attorney and shareholder at Buchalter.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“They don’t want more victims,” Silva told Decrypt<\/i>. Victim testimony, he continued, “makes the jury more sympathetic” to the government’s case, and Bankman-Fried’s legal team may be looking to head that off by creating fences around it. “[Bankman-Fried] is really trying to keep this damaging evidence away from the jury.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The defense is also gunning for another of the pillars of the prosecutors\u2019 case by attempting to argue that FTX stuck to its terms of service, meaning that it can\u2019t be accused of fraud regardless of others\u2019 understanding of what these meant. This, they hold, is a recognized defense in fraud cases: arguing that FTX complied with its own contract\u2019s terms.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In their <\/span>own response<\/span><\/a> a day later, prosecutors rejected the defense\u2019s notion as “simply wrong,” and asserted that the law is not limited to only breaches of a written contract. They added that their evidence has shown that Bankman-Fried misused client funds and repeatedly misrepresented how FTX was handling them at the same time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prosecutors also say they have not objected to the defense\u2019s cross-examination of witnesses, but contested that they were opposing questions designed to suggest they were negligent in their dealings with FTX.<\/span><\/p>\n

“There is thus no basis to exclude evidence or provide any limiting instruction about evidence of customers\u2019 beliefs regarding their understanding and interpretation of how their deposits would be handled by FTX, in the context of the statements which the defendant authorized about how FTX would treat their assets,” said the prosecutors in their filing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Silva said bankman-Fried\u2019s defense team arrived at the trial with steep odds of winning an acquittal, so they are left with a narrower suite of options to attack the government\u2019s case. In contrast, prosecutors still have more room to maneuver to convict Bankman-Fried.<\/span><\/p>\n

“If there are seven charges right now pending, and three or four different theories on these charges, prosecutors only have to prove one of them, and they can argue for a 20-year max sentence,” explained Silva. “In contrast, SBF has to be right on all of them [for acquittal].”<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/p>\n

Stay on top of crypto news, get daily updates in your inbox.<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lawyers for disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) are moving to expand the scope of their questioning for the prosecution\u2019s next round of witnesses after a bruising two weeks of testimony by members of the mogul\u2019s inner circle. SBF’s lawyers raised concerns with what they said were restrictions on their available lines of questioning with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[230,225,221,227,226,228,229,60,223,224,222],"class_list":["post-174896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency","tag-brave","tag-coinbase","tag-crypto","tag-decentralised","tag-decentralized","tag-decentralized-exchange","tag-erc-20","tag-featured","tag-meme-coin","tag-robinhood","tag-solana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174896"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":174899,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174896\/revisions\/174899"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}