Sam Bankman-Fried defense team fails to land a blow as he takes stand

Sam Bankman-Fried took the stand in a New York courtroom on Thursday, as he and his defense team auditioned their best legal material for U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan.

The former crypto billionaire had originally been scheduled to testify before the jury, but the judge sent jurors home early to consider whether some aspects of Bankman-Fried’s planned testimony, related to legal advice he got while running FTX, would be admissible in court.

In a sort of mini-hearing within the trial, defense attorney Mark Cohen guided Bankman-Fried through a series of questions designed to showcase the defense’s strongest arguments of his innocence, including suggesting that he relied on FTX’s former chief regulatory officer and in-house attorney, Dan Friedberg, to guide some actions that the government claims are illegal.

Bankman-Fried faces seven criminal counts, including wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering, that could land him in prison for more than 100 years if he is convicted at his trial in Manhattan federal court. Bankman-Fried, the son of two Stanford legal scholars, has pleaded not guilty in the case.

“Before the trial, I was convinced that SBF was headed to near-certain conviction on serious felony counts, and it was apparent to me that his defense team had not come up with anything that could derail that result,” said Renato Mariotti, a former prosecutor in the U.S. Justice Department’s Securities & Commodities Fraud Section and now a trial partner in Chicago with Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner.

“Nothing that has occurred during the trial has changed my view. The evidence of his guilt appears to be overwhelming,” added Mariotti.

In the last four weeks of trial, multiple members of the C-suite at crypto exchange FTX, and its sister hedge fund Alameda Research, have all singled out Bankman-Fried as the mastermind behind the scenes. Several of these witnesses have themselves pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including Bankman-Fried’s ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison, who faces a maximum sentence of 110 years for crimes committed while she was the CEO of Alameda.

Prosecutors have also entered evidence to corroborate witness accounts, including encrypted Signal messages and other internal documents that appear to show Bankman-Fried orchestrating the spending of FTX customer money.

The defense’s case — which is comprised of Bankman-Fried’s upcoming testimony along with that of two witnesses who both wrapped in just over an hour on Thursday morning — hinges on whether the jury believes the defendant when he takes the stand.

“He has always been convinced that he’s the smartest guy in the room and that he can talk his way out of any problem,” continued Mariotti.

“But the biggest problem with SBF’s testimony will be SBF himself. Given that the core issue will be intent to defraud, SBF should be portraying…