Ex-crypto golden boy Sam Bankman-Fried is ready to face a blistering cross-examination by Manhattan federal prosecutors Monday — after which a planned mysterious “rebuttal” witness.
The MIT grad, 31, coolly tried to weasel out of blame in court Friday for his alleged $10 billion theft from FTX investors, claiming he knew “mainly nothing’’ about cryptocurrency when he began his business and that it imploded due to “mistakes,’’ not crimes.
But he won’t have the opportunity to dodge getting slammed by prosecutors under cross-examination when his criminal trial resumes Monday morning.
Prosecutors also hinted Friday that they then plan to call a “rebuttal” witness after he leaves the stand.
“We predict a temporary rebuttal case,” a member of the federal prosecution team told Judge Lewis Kaplan after jurors were sent home for the day.
The feds didn’t discover the witness or explain how they’d “rebut” facets of the accused crypto crook’s account.
The accused crypto thief — who’s charged with splurging with FTX user funds on such luxurious goodies as hundreds of thousands of dollars in Bahamas real estate — testified Friday, “We thought we could construct the perfect product in the marketplace,” when asked by his lawyer why he founded his company.
The accused fraudster showed little to no emotion during his five-plus hours of testimony Friday.REUTERS
The lawyer, Mark Cohen, replied, “Did it work out that way?”
Bankman-Fried, wearing a gray suit and purple tie on the witness stand inside a packed federal courtroom in lower Manhattan, responded a flat, nasally monotone, “No, it turned out mainly the other of that.
“Numerous people got hurt,” added the defendant, whose parents are each Stanford Law School professors.
Bankman-Fried showed nearly no emotion — and little to no remorse — while providing various explanations for his corporations’ November 2022 meltdown.
The fallen crypto mogul claimed that FTX, an organization he owned and ran, had “significant oversights” in its “risk management.”
He also accused his ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison, who served as CEO of his hedge fund Alameda Research, of not “hedging” the corporate’s bets months before the feds say Bankman-Fried stole FTX funds to repay Alameda’s multibillion-dollar debt.
Ellison has taken a plea deal and flipped on Bankman-Fried.
She told jurors earlier this month that Bankman-Fried had the ultimate say on all major Alameda decisions and kept her story straight under questioning by the disgraced crypto magnate’s lawyers.
While facing the friendly questioning of his own lawyer, the ex-billionaire testified Friday that he “made quite a lot of small mistakes and quite a lot of large mistakes” while running FTX.
But he denied “taking” customer funds, contradicting testimony from three former executives, including Ellison, who told jurors that Bankman-Fried used FTX customer assets to prop up an underwater Alameda.
“Did you defraud anyone?” Bankman-Fried’s lawyer asked him shortly after he took the stand just before 10 a.m.
“No, I didn’t,” the defendant replied.
Bankman-Fried’s bail was revoked after a judge found that he’d leaked star witness Caroline Ellison’s diary to a reporter.AP
Prosecutors are set to get a crack on the disgraced crypto king during a cross-examination Monday that might be brutal for Bankman-Fried, if Thursday’s dry run was any indication.
The California native tried to squirm his way out of answering questions during a surprise evidence hearing — held after jurors were sent home — repeatedly stammering, “I don’t recall” as prosecutor Danielle Sassoon interrogated him.
Later Friday, the MIT grad tried to distance himself from computer code that the feds say allowed his hedge fund to pilfer unwitting FTX users’ funds by “borrowing” money it never paid back.
“I wasn’t much of a programmer,” Bankman-Fried claimed.
His ex-girlfriend Ellison has testified that Bankman-Fried in reality directed the corporate’s engineering chief, Nishad Singh, to put in writing the code allowing Alameda to access the funds.
The California native also testified that he knew “mainly nothing” about crypto before founding his crypto-focused hedge fund Alameda in 2017.
Bankman-Fried’s parents, Stanford Law School professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, have attended the trial.AFP via Getty Images
“I had absolutely no idea how they worked,” he said of crypto dealings.
He also provided his version of why he split up with Ellison within the spring of 2022, saying, “I didn’t have the time or the energy.”
He also addressed his typical schlubby dress code of khaki shorts and a t-shirt.
“I discovered them comfortable,” he said of the clothing.
Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to seven conspiracy and wire fraud charges and faces what would effectively be a life sentence if convicted.
He’s being held at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center after a federal judge revoked his bail after finding that he intimidated witnesses by leaking Ellison’s personal diary to a reporter.
