<\/p>\n
When the criminal trial of Sam Bankman-Fried started earlier this month, everyone was (and still is) very excited to hear what the man himself might say.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because there was already precedent for Bankman-Fried having something to say.<\/p>\n
Right up until his arrest last December in the Bahamas, Bankman-Fried couldn\u2019t stop talking. As FTX and Alameda went up in flames, Bankman-Fried continued to give interview after interview to anyone who would listen \u2014\u00a0a reporter friend at Vox, the New York Times, the New York Times Book Deal Conference, citizen journalist Tiffany Wong, Good Morning America, his biographer, a Bloomberg journalist writing a book about him\u2026and that list is far from exhaustive.<\/p>\n
In fact, Bankman-Fried\u2019s arrest interrupted his plan to testify before the House of Representatives the next day. So clearly, he\u2019s drawn to the microphone.<\/p>\n
This is all to say that it\u2019s very likely that Bankman-Fried himself wants to take the stand to tell his side. As an occasional courtroom observer, I can literally see him fidgeting to hold himself back as his defense attorneys misspeak or get chastised by the judge<\/a>.<\/p>\n But there is a very good reason why Bankman-Fried should not get on the witness stand. And that is the fact that his entire narrative about how Alameda ended up using FTX user funds \u2014\u00a0the narrative that he tried so desperately to get across last December \u2014 has been roundly disproven by the prosecution over the past few weeks.<\/p>\n Bankman-Fried\u2019s defense was naivet\u00e9: I didn\u2019t know, I wasn\u2019t responsible, there was no special treatment, I goofed up.<\/p>\n But for almost every one of Bankman-Fried\u2019s public explanations, the prosecution has the group chat screenshots, code updates and Google Docs to prove him wrong.<\/p>\n This is not to weigh in on Bankman-Fried\u2019s guilt \u2014 that\u2019s besides the point.\u00a0<\/p>\n But to put himself on the stand will mean that he either needs to repeat the story he told the world last December, which the prosecution has the receipts to disprove, or tell an entirely new story, which would paint him as a liar in the eyes of the jury.\u00a0<\/p>\n Either way, Bankman-Fried on the stand cannot win. This is a case where the best defense is not good offense \u2014\u00a0Bankman-Fried should sit back, keep his mouth shut, and rely on his lawyers to have done a good enough job establishing reasonable doubt that he won\u2019t spend the next 110 years in prison.<\/p>\n \u2013 Molly Jane Zuckerman, opinion editor\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Let\u2019s preface this all by two things: I\u2019m playing the devil\u2019s advocate here, and like most of those following the court case from afar, I\u2019ve got my open-in-case-of-SBF-testimony bag of popcorn ready.<\/p>\n To wit: Sam Bankman-Fried should take the witness stand this week.<\/p>\n While to many \u2014 including my esteemed colleague Molly Jane Zuckerman \u2014 this may seem like a disastrous course of action, I believe this path is essential if Bankman-Fried and his legal team have any hope of executing a narrative shift inside the courtroom. While I think it\u2019s fair to say that they\u2019ve lost whatever court-of-public-perception battle might\u2019ve been fought, that\u2019s besides the point.<\/p>\n Beyond the dizzying array of technical information and context-heavy documentation, the prosecution\u2019s case is, at heart, the side of the story of FTX\u2019s rise and fall presented by Caroline Ellison, Nishad Singh and other former FTX insiders and employees. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s exactly fair to characterize it as a they-said-he-said, but it\u2019s in the neighborhood. The defense should certainly treat it as such.<\/p>\n Remember: The defense needs to produce doubt about the prosecution\u2019s case. And they wouldn\u2019t need to present a case at all if there wasn\u2019t cause to believe that doubt already exists. Testimony from Bankman-Fried could \u2014\u00a0risks aside \u2014 provide another avenue for producing that doubt.<\/p>\n All eyes are on the defense this week given the court\u2019s past rebuffing of its planned cast of expert witnesses. If the defense harbors any hope of keeping their client out of the clink for the next century, they must counter the messy, complex, emotional and very human tale put forth by the prosecution\u2019s cooperating witnesses. They have to present something.\u00a0<\/p>\n As risky a prospect as a Bankman-Fried testimony might seem, an appearance on the stand is a chance to counterbalance the he-said side of things.<\/p>\n One could also boil this choice down to a much simpler calculation: Given the consequences of failure, what does Bankman-Fried have to lose?<\/p>\n \u2013\u00a0Michael McSweeney, managing editor<\/em><\/p>\n Molly Jane Zuckerman is the opinion editor at Blockworks. She previously led educational content at CoinMarketCap and ran the news desk at Cointelegraph. Molly Jane is now based in New York after almost a decade in Russia, and can talk your ear off about Russia lit and detective novels. Contact Molly Jane:\u00a0[email\u00a0protected]<\/a><\/p>\n Michael McSweeney has worked in crypto media since 2014, including editorships at CoinDesk and The Block. In his spare time, he writes fiction and plays disc golf. Contact Michael at\u00a0[email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t miss the next big story \u2013 join our\u00a0free daily newsletter<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nSam Bankman-Fried should totally take the witness stand\u00a0<\/h2>\n
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