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The Courts Bitcoin

Sam Bankman-Fried Testifies, Says He 'Skimmed Over' FTX Terms of Service (arstechnica.com) 49

Posted by BeauHD from the not-a-good-look dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Sam Bankman-Fried took the stand in his criminal trial today in an attempt to avoid decades in prison for alleged fraud at cryptocurrency exchange FTX and its affiliate Alameda Research. [...] Some of the alleged fraud relates to how Alameda borrowed money from FTX. In testimony today, "Bankman-Fried said he believed that under FTX's terms of service, sister firm Alameda was allowed in many circumstances to borrow funds from the exchange," the WSJ wrote. Bankman-Fried reportedly said the terms of service were written by FTX lawyers and that he only "skimmed" certain parts. "I read parts in depth. Parts I skimmed over," Bankman-Fried reportedly said after [U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan] asked if he read the entire terms of service document.

Sassoon asked Bankman-Fried if he had "any conversations with lawyers about Alameda spending customer money that was deposited into FTX bank accounts," according to Bloomberg's live coverage. "I don't recall any conversations that were contemporaneous and phrased that way," Bankman-Fried answered. "I had so many conversations with lawyers later when we were trying to reconcile things in November 2022," Bankman-Fried also said. "There were conversations around Alameda being used as a payment processor, a payment agent for FTX. I frankly don't recall conversations with lawyers or otherwise about the usage of the funds or the North Dimension accounts." North Dimension was an Alameda subsidiary. The Securities and Exchange Commission has alleged that "Bankman-Fried directed FTX to have customers send funds to North Dimension in an effort to hide the fact that the funds were being sent to an account controlled by Alameda." [...]

In an overview of the alleged crimes, the indictment said Bankman-Fried "misappropriated and embezzled FTX customer deposits and used billions of dollars in stolen funds... to enrich himself; to support the operations of FTX; to fund speculative venture investments; to help fund over a hundred million dollars in campaign contributions to Democrats and Republicans to seek to influence cryptocurrency regulation; and to pay for Alameda's operating costs." He was also accused of making "false and fraudulent statements and representations to FTX's investors and Alameda's lenders." SBF's legal team decided that he would take the stand in his own defense -- a risky decision by legal observers as he will have to face cross-examination from federal prosecutors. In a rather unusual move, Judge Kaplan sent the jury home for a day to conduct a hearing on whether certain parts of Bankman-Fried's testimony are admissible.

During his testimony, Bankman-Fried discussed various aspects of the case, including FTX's terms of service, loans from Alameda to him and other executives, a hack into FTX, and his use of the encrypted messaging service Signal. Live paywall-free updates of the trial are available here.
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Sam Bankman-Fried Testifies, Says He 'Skimmed Over' FTX Terms of Service More

Sam Bankman-Fried Testifies, Says He 'Skimmed Over' FTX Terms of Service

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  • Just sank his "advice of lawyers" defense. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Thursday October 26, 2023 @11:39PM (#63957365) Journal

    He can't claim that both are true:
    1. He committed these offenses on the advice of his lawyers and
    2. He didn't read what the lawyers gave him, nor did he talk to them about the documents.

    • He can't claim that both are true:
      1. He committed these offenses on the advice of his lawyers and
      2. He didn't read what the lawyers gave him, nor did he talk to them about the documents.

      Afaik he's not claiming 1. The nitty gritty was hashed out in https://storage.courtlistener.... [courtlistener.com]

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It all makes sense now.

      1. Start a company
      2. Hire lawyers to write Terms of Service
      3. Don't read the the Terms of Service written by YOUR lawyers that YOU hired for for YOUR company
      4. Your are now allowed to steal all the money you want

    • He can't claim that both are true:
      1. He committed these offenses on the advice of his lawyers and
      2. He didn't read what the lawyers gave him, nor did he talk to them about the documents.

      He has far bigger problems. By blaming his lawyers he runs the risk of invoking the crime-fraud exception making all of his legal discussions that would previously have been privileged communications admissible in court.

      I read a great article this morning which basically summarised that the most damning witness statements against SBF are those made by SBF himself. I'm sure his lawyer was sitting the the room internally screaming "STFU Idiot!"

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kick6 ( 1081615 )

        He has far bigger problems. By blaming his lawyers he runs the risk of invoking the crime-fraud exception making all of his legal discussions that would previously have been privileged communications admissible in court.

        I read a great article this morning which basically summarised that the most damning witness statements against SBF are those made by SBF himself. I'm sure his lawyer was sitting the the room internally screaming "STFU Idiot!"

        Alternatively, his lawyers knows he's guilty as shit, and they can't keep him out of prison, so their play is only to try to minimize jailtime...not avoid it.

        • You don't minimise jail time by having private communications with your lawyer opened up. There are ways to go about plausible deniability properly. This isn't one of them. No lawyer would have ever recommended this approach.

  • Either he is hoping someone will do a magical Chewbacca defense for him, or âI just did not know any better how MY business was runningâ(TM) is the best this so called genius wizkid could come up with now that his back is finally so firmly against the wall. So clueless, except when he told everyone to hide their tracks all the time. Maybe he is counting on his hair again. This all is just completely unbelievable.

    • sounds more like he is relying on the fact the court will see him more as a moron that negligent rather than criminally minded and others should have picked up on this.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kick6 ( 1081615 )

        sounds more like he is relying on the fact the court will see him more as a moron that negligent rather than criminally minded and others should have picked up on this.

        Or he thinks it doesn't matter what he says or does, his parent's connections will bail him out. This whole thing seems like a guy who thinks no consequences are possible for him.

      • I'm guessing it's both.
  • "I can't remember" isn't usually a very good legal defense. People take it to mean that you're hiding something.
  • Skimmed the TOS, or skimmed the bank accounts?
    • Yes

    • Saying the words "I skimmed..." in front of a jury when you are accused of embezzlement is bad.

      His lawyers should know better than to let him use loaded phrases like that. Neuro Linguistic Programming is something they should understand.

  • Gotta love quotes like this (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Friday October 27, 2023 @01:48AM (#63957479) Homepage

    I don't have any knowledge that I did, but I am not looking at a copy of it so I don't know precisely what it says

    What an incompetent dweeb. I want to say his lawyers are also dumb for letting him on the stand to say stuff like that, but likely they just threw up their hands in disgust.

    He lucked into a position where he was suddenly running a $billion company, without any actual idea of how to run a business. When it came crumbling down around his hears, he's like a toddler whose block tower fell over. Staring at it in shock, and zero understanding.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gijoel ( 628142 )
      He seems to think that he can put on his tousled haired, slacker, whiz-kid act and win the jury over. Much like Prince Andrew's disastrous tv interview he'll think he did really well, until the verdict is kicks him in the balls.

      He's already shot himself in both feet trying to frame his ex-girlfriend. The slacker, effective altruism act is just not going to cut it anymore.

    • "I want to say his lawyers are also dumb for letting him on the stand to say stuff like that, but likely they just threw up their hands in disgust."

      More like his lawyers are saying, "Nothing he can do would make it *worse*." I will admit that SBF seems to be doing his best to prove them wrong.

    • He lucked into a position where he was suddenly running a $billion company,

      Bad luck for him.

    • "his lawyers are also dumb for letting him on the stand"

      His lawyers cannot prevent him from taking the stand.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      I want to say his lawyers are also dumb for letting him on the stand to say stuff like that, but likely they just threw up their hands in disgust.

      I'm willing to bet his lawyers basically said to not take the stand, to not say anything, just shut up and watch because that's your right in the trial.

      Because EVERY lawyer says that. No defendant is ever recommended to take the stand in any case unless there's a rock solid plan behind it, because in almost all cases, the defendant will shoot themselves in the fo

  • Terms of service have little meaning (Score:3)

    by g01d4 ( 888748 ) on Friday October 27, 2023 @02:41AM (#63957515)
    In an age of unicorns grazing on cryptocurrency and future earnings projections fed by a steady rain of venture capital. All the while shitting on value metrics such as P/E. It's all well and good, till the rain stops.

  • the defense has been unable to produce the actual document retention policy, though they say it exists.

    The document retention policy was not in the document retention policy. Thus the document retention policy was not retained per the document retention policy that was not retained.

    Amazing logic! Cochran would be proud.

  • How can someone so incompetent make so much money in so little time?

    You know, when I was young, I had this idea that rich people were shrewd. They knew how to do ... stuff. They were wise and knew how to invest, how to work with money, how to make deals, how to spot an opportunity... that's what I thought.

    When you take a look at the current slew of billionaires, you realize that nothing of this is true. Nothing. They're just huge gamblers and the ones that are billionaires are the ones who happened to pull

    • Having rich parents [youtu.be] helps.

      i.e.
      * Mother: Barbara Fried was professor at Stanford Law School and lawyer, co-founder of Mind the Gap
      * Father: Joseph Bankman is a lawyer

  • wow (Score:2)

    by nomadic ( 141991 )

    The guy so dramatically overestimates his own intelligence it's astonishing. And I remember seeing on social media that the people who went to school with him at MIT thought he was a bit dense back then, which tracks.

    Anyway, over the years on Slashdot a lot of trial stories resulted in a lot of tech types expounding in the comments on what they would say if they were ever accused of a crime, and the brilliant arguments they'd lay down to outmaneuver the prosecutor and police and impress the judge and jury.

  • 60 minutes did an interview a few weeks ago with a professional writer who followed Sam Bankman-Fried around and got to know him very well.

    Bankman-Fried is apparently a nerd's nerd who is kind of out of touch with a lot of basic realities. The writer said that the worst thing that could happen would be if he were cut off from the internet, that it would drive him crazy, that he'd rather be in a prison cell with access to the internet, to information, than stay in a luxury penthouse with no internet access

    • He's not a super-villain, he's a dumb criminal.
      • He was smart enough to find all the ways to run a world wide tax dodging scam. His mother and father no doubt telling him every loop hole they discovered in their tax law careers. Maybe he was a front. Showing no interest in hedge fund meetings points to someone else made it work. Meanwhile he's happily waiting for someone close to him to slowly launder all that "stolen" crypto. White collar criminals do not serve very long. Big sentence, yes. Time served with lawyer parents? Bugger all..
    • I disagree. When statements from all of the witnesses indicate he was constantly in the mode of manipulation. From the clothes to the haircut to the use of disappearing messages to the don't retain documents to the say/write nothing down that would be a problem on the front page of the NY Times. He probably got a good bit of this from being raised by what I guess is a pretty good lawyer father. He learned well. He learned how to commit crimes that were very hard to trace. The only thing written that shows c
  • Judge: "Did you not receive the terms of service?"

    Scott BF: "I skimmed it..."

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