Sam Bankman-Fried Trial seems at Federal Courtroom in New York on Oct. 4th, 2023.
Artist: Claudia Johnson
Marc-Antoine Julliard generally trades cocoa beans. However within the spring of 2021, the London-based commodities dealer determined to diversify into cryptocurrency buying and selling. His platform of selection used to be FTX.
Two years later, Julliard stood because the prosecution’s first witness within the prison fraud trial towards FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who is accused of misusing billions of bucks in shopper cash.
In testimony that lasted round 50 mins on Wednesday, Julliard recounted his revel in with FTX, together with the “extraordinarily frightened” feeling he had the day he unsuccessfully tried to withdraw a part of the $100,000 price of crypto and money he had saved at the website online. He and hundreds of alternative FTX shoppers have been almost burnt up when the change went abdominal up past due remaining yr.
Like many others, Julliard mentioned he he used to be beneath the influence that there have been “robust financials at the back of the corporate.”
Julliard is the poster kid for the case the prosecution specified by its opening commentary because it tries to end up to a jury that shoppers have been resulted in consider the cash they saved with FTX used to be protected. Potential shoppers, Julliard mentioned, have been drawn in via savvy advertising, with out a explanation why to consider that FTX can be repurposing their crypto budget.
In an ordeal that is set to remaining six weeks, Bankman-Fried, a person as soon as respected because the “white knight” of crypto, faces seven federal fees, together with cord fraud, securities fraud and cash laundering, that might put him in jail for the remainder of his lifestyles.
A jury used to be seated in a while after 11:30 a.m. (despite the fact that 4 of the 12 jurors have been already having a look to be disregarded). Opening statements started about an hour later. Julliard took the stand simply sooner than 2 p.m. to a packed courthouse in New york.
Because the lead witness, Julliard helped lay out the federal government’s narrative. A lot of his resolution to shop for into FTX needed to do with the celebs and undertaking budget connected to the logo. He referenced an advert with stick insect Gisele Bündchen and Formulation 1 advertising. He additionally pointed to prolific media protection, which reinforced his agree with within the corporate.
Julliard wasn’t an competitive crypto dealer. He mentioned he by no means participated in margin buying and selling, or borrowing cash to make purchases, nor did he have interaction in a lending program introduced through the corporate that allowed customers to earn passion on idle crypto.
Sam Bankman-Fried sits along with his protection crew throughout his fraud trial over the cave in of FTX, the bankrupt cryptocurrency change, at Federal Courtroom in New York Town, U.S., October 4, 2023 on this court comic strip.
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
Protection needs shoppers to shoulder blame
The protection is making an attempt to make shoppers in control of what it says have been their alternatives to shop for and industry crypto.
“Sam did not defraud somebody,” mentioned Mark Cohen, Bankman-Fried’s legal professional, in his opening commentary. Cohen referred to as it a “hindsight case” introduced through the federal government, and mentioned that simply because other folks misplaced cash, doesn’t suggest the 31-year-old Bankman-Fried dedicated fraud.
Bankman-Fried donned a contemporary swimsuit with a crimson tie and a blank haircut — a miles other glance than the seashore shorts, sandals and wild curls that helped outline his symbol throughout crypto’s heyday. The entrepreneur, who Cohen described as a “math nerd that did not drink or birthday celebration,” diligently took notes on his air-gapped computer as he conversed with either one of his legal professionals and, throughout breaks, once in a while stood whilst emphatically motioning along with his arms as he spoke to his suggest.
Right through each side’ opening statements, Bankman-Fried saved his eyes educated at the jury field. His head used to be became 90 levels to his proper to look at those that will in the long run come to a decision his destiny. Bankman-Fried used to be joined in courtroom through his folks, who’re each being sued through FTX’s new control for having allegedly “exploited their get entry to and affect inside the FTX endeavor to counterpoint themselves…through tens of millions of bucks.”
Cohen is projecting Bankman-Fried as a startup founder and equated operating FTX and Alameda Analysis, his sister hedge fund, to “development a airplane whilst flying on it.” He informed the jury that there used to be no chance control in position. In particular, he mentioned the company did not have a first-rate chance officer.
A long way from the “cool animated film of a villain” that the federal government introduced, Cohen gave other explanations for his shopper’s supposedly unlawful movements. One instance handled the name of the game backdoor baked into FTX’s code that prosecutors say gave Alameda a approach to borrow a lot wanted capital.
Cohen mentioned there used to be not anything secretive about this backchannel within the code base and mentioned the particular get entry to to FTX used to be there as a result of Alameda used to be to begin with arrange as a marketplace maker for the crypto change, which wanted the liquidity, particularly in its early days.
Cohen reminded the jury that the 3 insiders who will take the stand towards Bankman-Fried have all signed cooperation agreements with the federal government.
A $10 billion fraud
The prosecution’s opening commentary used to be delivered through Assistant U.S. Lawyer Thane Rehn. Over the process a few part hour, Rehn drove house the purpose that on a regular basis buyers have been those who fell sufferer to FTX’s scheme. Through the summer season of 2022, he mentioned, greater than $10 billion were stolen from hundreds of FTX shoppers who had relied on custody in their crypto and money to the platform.
Rehn mentioned the proof would display jurors how Bankman-Fried lied to FTX customers, buyers and lenders, and the way he spent a excellent quantity of the cash he stole for his personal excellent. Rehn referenced marketing campaign contributions, for instance, as a method that Bankman-Fried seemed to curry choose on Capitol Hill.
Rehn referred to as Alameda a “2d, smaller and extra secretive corporate” based and regulated through Bankman-Fried that used to be integral to the defendant’s alleged scheme.
The federal government additionally teed up its superstar witness, ex-girlfriend and Alameda’s ex-CEO, Caroline Ellison. She pleaded accountable in December to a couple of fees and has been cooperating with the U.S. legal professional’s workplace in New york for months.
Rehn plans to turn that Bankman-Fried put in his lady friend on the most sensible of his hedge fund, despite the fact that he remained the only calling the photographs at the back of the scenes.
Allan Joseph Bankman, father of FTX Co-Founder Sam Bankman-Fried, and Barbara Fried, mom of FTX Co-Founder Sam Bankman-Fried, arrive at courtroom in New York, US, on Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2023.
Stephanie Keith | Bloomberg | Getty Photographs
Noticeably absent used to be the point out of Ellison’s co-CEO Sam Trabucco, who used to be a classmate of Bankman-Fried at MIT. Trabucco left FTX in Aug. 2022, and has stayed fairly beneath the radar.
Additionally central to the federal government’s case is the alleged coverup to cover Bankman-Fried’s crimes. The ones ways come with backdating contracts and the usage of encrypted messaging apps set to auto-delete to steer clear of a paper path.
“This guy stole billions of bucks from hundreds of other folks,” Rein mentioned, as he closed his commentary.
The prosecution’s 2d witness used to be Adam Yedidia, who met Bankman-Fried in faculty on the Massachusetts Institute of Era. The pair remained excellent buddies.
Yedida detailed his revel in operating first as a dealer at Alameda for 2 months in 2017, and later as a device engineer for FTX starting in January 2021. He mentioned he resigned from FTX the day sooner than the change filed for chapter after a fellow developer informed him that Alameda had used FTX buyer deposits to pay again collectors.
Talking temporarily and intentionally with an air of practiced nonchalance, Yedida testified that he hadn’t talked to Bankman-Fried or observed him in individual since Nov. 2022.
When requested why he used to be showing beneath an immunity order, Yedida mentioned he used to be involved that as an FTX developer, he “could have unwittingly written code that contributed to against the law.”
Prosecutors were given via a part hour of testimony sooner than breaking for the day. The federal government will proceed its wondering of Yedida at 9:30 A.M. on Thursday.
FTX co-founder Gary Wang may also be taking the stand this week for the federal government.
WATCH: Sam Bankman-Fried prison trial starts in New York