Sam Bankman-Fried Having a Tough Time Ahead of October Trial: Judge Rejected His Expert Witnesses – Appellate Court Denied Plea for Freedom – His Parents Sued by FTX for Stealing Company Funds
Disgraced ‘crypto-bro’ billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, former FTX CEO and second largest donor to the Democrat party after George Soros, just had a very tough week filled with setbacks and worrying developments.
In the run-up to his trial next month, incarcerated SBF US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan decide against him in pretrial motions, while an appellate court refused to overturn Kaplan’s decision to remand him to prison pending trial.
CoinDesk reported:
“Yesterday was arguably not a great day for Sam Bankman-Fried. First, the judge overseeing his case rejected all seven of his proposed expert witnesses, questioning at least one’s qualifications and saying some others really wouldn’t be relevant to the case.
Shortly after, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Bankman-Fried’s appeal of Judge Lewis Kaplan’s ruling to revoke his release on bail.
I don’t think the appeal denial is a surprise to anyone. Judge Kaplan even joked about his record on appeals (favorable) in the Aug. 11 hearing where he remanded Bankman-Fried into custody, and indeed the three-judge [Appeals] panel wrote that they ‘discerned no error, much less clear error, in the district court’s detention decision’.”
Therefore, Bankman-Fried will remain behind bars as his trial begins.
“[It’s already known that] the DOJ plans to call witnesses as soon as the week of Oct. 3, and while I haven’t seen a full or final list of witnesses, we do now have some greater clarity about who we can expect to testify over the course of the trial: [FTX executives] Gary Wang, Nishad Singh, Caroline Ellison, an FBI agent, Andria van der Merwe, a specialist in ‘complex litigation and regulatory investigations’ […] and Peter Easton, a University of Notre Dame professor who will apparently explain FTX’s financials for starters.”
This series of setbacks are worrisome, as he gears up for a trial scheduled in two weeks.
Bloomberg reported:
“He had his $250 million bail revoked in August, after the judge in his case ruled he likely tried to tamper with two government witnesses. His lawyers asked the federal appeals court in Manhattan on Tuesday to release him so that he could properly prepare for his trial.
Bankman-Fried’s lawyer, Mark Cohen, said his client was merely exercising his First Amendment free-speech rights when he spoke to a New York Times reporter about the case. But the appeals court said Thursday there was “probable cause” that he’d “engaged in witness tampering” by sharing the private writings of Caroline Ellison, his former girlfriend who served as the CEO of Alameda Research.”
But US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan “did leave the door open for Bankman-Fried’s legal team to call some witnesses — including two experts in data analytics and blockchain technology — to respond to the government’s witnesses.”
And if that was not enough, there’s also the fact that the new management at FTX is suing founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents for allegedly ‘using their access and influence inside the bankrupt crypto exchange to enrich themselves.
“In a lawsuit filed […] in Delaware, Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried, both longtime Stanford Law School professors, are accused of taking at least a $10million cash gift from Sam Bankman-Fried, as well as a $16.4million home in the Bahamas.
Bankman and Fried are also, respectively, accused of helping cover up complaints from the exchange’s former attorney, and helping executives evade necessary disclosures for political donations.
The suit claims the couple ‘either knew – or ignored bright red flags revealing – that their son, Bankman-Fried, and other FTX Insiders were orchestrating a vast fraudulent scheme’.”
Also stemming from this lawsuit comes the even more disturbing allegation that Sam Bankman-Fried’s dad allegedly had advisory role at top Democratic ‘dark money network’.
Read more about FXT:
DEVELOPING: Crypto Scammer Sam Bankman-Fried Jailed Over Witness Tampering
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