In a setback for Sam Bankman-Fried, the founding father of the FTX cryptocurrency trade, a US decide has restricted his capacity to current professional witnesses at his legal fraud trial.
Bankman-Fried had sought to name seven consultants on matters associated to cryptocurrency markets and English contracts in an effort to persuade the jury to acquit him of costs of stealing billions of {dollars} in FTX buyer funds to cowl losses at his Alameda Analysis hedge fund.
US District Choose Lewis Kaplan issued a written order that excluded three of the proposed professional witnesses, deeming their testimony both irrelevant or doubtlessly complicated for the jury.
Late in August, attorneys for the US Division of Justice filed a movement to exclude each witness that Bankman-Fried had urged.
Choose: Sam Bankman-Fried Knowledgeable Witnesses Can’t Testify
Amongst these witnesses was Peter Vinella, a marketing consultant who supposed to debate “FTX’s use of widely-accepted practices within the monetary providers trade.” Choose Kaplan discovered this testimony to be irrelevant to the case.
Moreover, Bankman-Fried was barred from calling English barrister Lawrence Akka to testify about FTX’s phrases of service, which had been ruled by English regulation. Kaplan reasoned that solely a decide may instruct jurors on issues of regulation.
In response to the court docket, Akka’s testimony doesn’t serve the aim of aiding the jury in comprehending FTX’s phrases of service. As a substitute, it’s deemed as an expression of “authorized opinions” relating to the interpretation of the contractual phrases in query.
BTCUSD barely midway to the vital $27K territory. Chart: TradingView.com
The defence additionally requested testimony on FTX’s financials, software program, and doc metadata from consultants Thomas Bishop and Joseph Pimbley in addition to information analytics specialist Brian Kim.
On the premise of Rule 16, which requires the federal government to disclose particular proof it intends to make use of all through the trial, the court docket rejected all of their potential testimony.
Gov’t Might Block All Requests
Sam Bankman-Fried might file a request to allow sure witnesses to testify if his attorneys really feel that the witnesses will be capable to refute testimony from authorities witnesses. The federal government may, nonetheless, oppose the submitting.
The court docket paperwork counsel that Bankman-Fried might argue that the phrases of service didn’t explicitly prohibit using buyer funds for investments, drawing a comparability to how conventional banks use deposits to fund loans. This apply, he might contend, was frequent within the cryptocurrency trade.
It’s customary in US legal trials for each prosecutors and defendants to name upon professional witnesses to assist make clear advanced points. On this case, the prosecution plans to current three former FTX and Alameda executives, all of whom have pleaded responsible to their roles within the alleged fraud, as witnesses in Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial.
The trial is anticipated to increase over a interval of as much as six weeks because it unfolds.
Bankman-Fried, a 31-year-old former billionaire, has entered a not responsible plea to the fees in opposition to him. Whereas he has acknowledged deficiencies in threat administration at FTX previous to its collapse in November 2022, he vehemently denies any wrongdoing within the misappropriation of funds.
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