Sam Bankman-Fried will be pushing to clear his name after his former colleagues made many revelations that could lead to his imprisonment for more than 100 years if the jury finds him guilty.
After the prosecutors had a chance to present their witness to testify against former FTX boss Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the defense attorneys confirmed that their client was ready to have his time on the stand. According to defense attorney Mark Cohen, SBF could testify during the trial on Thursday, in a bid to set things straight following heavy accusations by his former colleagues including Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang, and Nishad Signh. However, the task ahead of him is not easy as the prosecutors have several recordings of him speaking about how FTX collapsed, which will be compared with his testimony.
Notably, Cohen told the prosecutors and the presiding Judge Lewis Kaplan that the SBF’s testimony would not take long. Moreover, the defense team intends to call three witnesses including a Bahamas-based lawyer, Joseph Pimbley. Nonetheless, SBF has been described as having a ‘loose tongue’ by legal experts, which has put him in more trouble with the court.
For instance, SBF went ahead to speak with the media, a move that violated his bail conditions, hence being put in police custody before the trial even began. Additionally, SBF lost the initial attorney Paul Weiss for what is believed to be a similar conflict of interest.
As a result, legal experts led by Brian Newman, an attorney at the law firm Dykema Gossett, believe that SBF will be walking on a tightrope on the stand. Moreover, the jury has already been informed of the events that led to the FTX collapse by different witnesses and presented with details from acting CEO John Ray III.
What Next for FTX Customers amid SBF’s Trial
The FTX customers are undeniably running out of patience as the bankruptcy proceedings take longer to resolve and more money gets spent in the restructuring process. Moreover, Ray confirmed that the exchange had recovered about $5 billion of customers’ assets and was recently given the green light to liquidate the crypto assets. Earlier this week, crypto analytics platform Nansen highlighted that FTX officials had moved about $8.7 million in Ether, Chainlink, and AAVE to Binance crypto exchanges in a bid to liquidate the assets.
FTX and Alameda funds are on the move! 🏃
– 2.2M USD LINK
– 1M USD AAVE
– 2M USD MKR
– 3.4M USD ETHThese funds moved to 0xde9 then 0xaee which is a Binance address
We don’t track offchain movements, but presumably, this is to either sell or to prepare to sell these funds pic.twitter.com/n6jfyghDmk
— Nansen 🧭 (@nansen_ai) October 25, 2023
The FTX officials have sued several parties including SBF parents who are believed to have taken customers’ funds through Alameda Research in a bid to maximize recovery. However, the funds recovered could never be optimized to entire deposits as SBF and the team had spent notable funds in funding politicians and parties across different cities.
As a result, the crypto community will be eagerly waiting for SBF’s testimony to have a better glimpse of how the customers’ funds were lost.
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