Sam Bankman-Fried trial: FTX founder’s fate now in jury’s hands

Math nerd or diabolical crypto criminal? 

That’s what 12 jurors in a Manhattan courtroom will have to decide on Thursday when deliberations begin on the seven federal charges against Sam Bankman-Fried, the 31-year-old FTX co-founder accused by the government of orchestrating and forcing his underlings to carry out one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history. 

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Federal prosecutors and the onetime billionaire’s legal team made their final pitches to the jury on Wednesday, with each side painting a very different picture of the once-celebrated wunderkind. The judge is expected to give jurors instructions Thursday morning before deliberations begin in the high-profile case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos said Bankman-Fried was a liar and consumed by greed and that he knew what he was doing was wrong. Bankman-Fried siphoned billions from FTX accounts for his personal use and made risky trades at his crypto hedge fund Alameda Research, all while telling the public their money was safe on his exchange, prosecutors said. FTX and Alameda’s catastrophic collapse last November exposed a multibillion-dollar hole in the balance sheets that left thousands of customers unable to recover their deposits. 

Defense attorneys countered that Bankman-Fried was young and in over his head and caught up in the fast-paced and largely unregulated world of cryptocurrency. While admitting mistakes were made, they said he acted “in good faith” and shouldn’t be held accountable. The defense has argued it isn’t a crime “to be the CEO of a company that needs to fold for bankruptcy.”

Bankman-Fried is facing seven criminal charges, including money laundering and securities fraud, tied to FTX’s implosion. He has pleaded not guilty. If he is convicted of all of the charges, he will be sentenced to what is theoretically a life sentence.

(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Many of the key players in the alleged con have testified for the prosecution against Bankman-Fried, including his ex-girlfriend, Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, as well as FTX co-founders Gary Wang and Nishad Singh. All three testified that Bankman-Fried knew for months that his out-of-control spending sprees were unsustainable and made possible by money siphoned from FTX customer accounts. They testified that Bankman-Fried also knew his hedge fund, Alameda, could not pay back the money it had taken from FTX.

Bankman-Fried was once celebrated as the world’s crypto king. He partied with playboys, lived in a penthouse in the Bahamas, and got A-list stars such as Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen, Steph Curry, and Larry David to back his failed FTX digital currency exchange.

At its peak, FTX was valued at $32 billion, backed by elite venture capital firms, and had the naming rights to the Miami Heat’s basketball stadium.

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The 12 jurors and six alternates who will decide his fate were picked from a pool of 45.

The jury is made up of nine women and three men ranging from 33 to 69 years old. The group includes a 50-year-old Metro-North train conductor and mother of five, a 47-year-old high school librarian who lives with her cats and sick mother, a 61-year-old male postal worker, a 40-year-old unemployed social worker, and a 43-year-old Ukrainian woman who does IT and has been in the United States for 15 years.