Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, is organizing to testify at his prison fraud trial in Manhattan, his attorney explained on Wednesday.
The law firm, Mark Cohen, confirmed Mr. Bankman-Fried’s plans to acquire the witness stand at a listening to with prosecutors and the judge overseeing the situation, which was held on the final working day of a virtually weeklong break in the trial. Mr. Bankman-Fried, 31, is probable to commence testifying on Thursday, immediately after federal prosecutors contact their final witness in the morning.
“Our consumer is going to be testifying,” Mr. Cohen reported at the listening to.
Mr. Bankman-Fried is charged with orchestrating a sweeping plan to steal as considerably as $10 billion in deposits from customers of FTX. Prosecutors say that the cryptocurrency mogul funneled the money into political contributions, authentic estate purchases and other lavish paying.
Mr. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not responsible to seven prices of fraud, conspiracy and revenue laundering. If convicted, he could facial area what amounts to a life sentence.
About the initial a few weeks of the demo, prosecutors have known as a procession of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s shut pals and colleagues, who have testified that the FTX founder lied to shoppers, buyers and loan providers about the exchange’s use of purchaser income.
At the listening to on Wednesday, Mr. Cohen mentioned the defense was preparing to contact a few witnesses in addition to Mr. Bankman-Fried. One is Joseph Pimbley, a fiscal providers specialist, who is predicted to testify abut the finances of FTX and Alameda Investigate, the crypto investing company that borrowed billions of dollars from FTX buyers. Mr. Bankman-Fried established Alameda ahead of he commenced FTX.
Mr. Cohen is also scheduling to contact a Bahamian law firm who was involved in Mr. Bankman-Fried’s circumstance, as nicely as an qualified on the preservation of corporate data.
Mr. Bankman-Fried is expected to testify following people witnesses.
Weeks following FTX imploded in November, Mr. Bankman-Fried was arrested at his penthouse condominium in the Bahamas, in which the trade was dependent. He was then extradited to the United States and put under house arrest at his parents’ home in Northern California. In August, his bail was revoked right after a choose dominated that he had experimented with to intimidate witnesses.
Through the demo, Mr. Bankman-Fried has spent his evenings at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, in which his lawyers say he has had only intermittent entry to the laptop documents he demands to put together for trial. In August, the legal professionals mentioned Mr. Bankman-Fried, who is vegan, was subsisting on a diet plan of bread, drinking water and peanut butter.
Mr. Bankman-Fried has appeared in courtroom each individual working day of the trial, which commenced this month, carrying a match ordered from a lower price rack at Macy’s. His mothers and fathers, the Stanford legislation professors Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried, have viewed from the gallery, together with other highly effective legal figures, together with Damian Williams, the best federal prosecutor in Manhattan.