(New York) Did former cryptocurrency superstar Sam Bankman-Fried “steal” from his clients or was he simply a young, fiery but bona fide entrepreneur? On Wednesday, the prosecutor and defense delivered two opposing portraits of the same accused.
“What happened does not involve complex issues related to cryptocurrencies,” said Nicolas Roos, representative of the federal prosecutor in Manhattan. “It’s about deception, lies, theft, greed.”
For “SBF” lawyer Mark Cohen, the prosecution “tried to make Sam a bad guy, a kind of monster,” he argued.
An invention, according to him, based on the erroneous premise according to which “FTX was a fraudulent company”, built “to steal customer funds from the outset”.
Sam Bankman-Fried is on trial in New York for using, without their knowledge, funds deposited by customers on his cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX, which went bankrupt in November 2022.
This money fueled the venture transactions and investments of his investment company Alameda Research, whose borrowings reached $14 billion.
“SBF” faces up to 110 years in prison if convicted.
“One of the questions (to which the jury must answer) is to determine whether he knew that taking this money was wrong,” explained Nicolas Roos.
“He knew it. He still did it,” insisted the representative of the public prosecutor. “He thought that because he was smart, he could get away with it.”
“Sam’s good faith is a defense against all the charges” against him, his lawyer retorted. “In real life, things get confusing, people make mistakes, and later regret not having corrected them. »
To exonerate the accused, “you would have to believe that he understood nothing” of what was happening within his own companies, according to the prosecutor’s representative. “You have followed this entire trial and you know that none of this is true,” he insisted.
During the hearings of this trial which began on October 3, Sam Bankman-Fried admitted to having made “big mistakes” in his management, but he always refuted having knowingly broken the law.
He notably explained, during his testimony a few days ago, that he was only informed very late of Alameda’s financial situation. He also assured that he had given instructions – not followed, according to him – to manage the risks taken by Alameda.
“Who was in control? That’s the question,” said Nicolas Roos. “It was one person: the accused. »
He emphasized that the young entrepreneur was the only one with control over both FTX and Alameda.
” Even further ”
Mark Cohen argued that Sam Bankman-Fried had tried, until the end, to save FTX, even if it meant losing everything, his fortune of several billion dollars disappearing with the bankruptcy.
“Sam was willing to give everything he had to resolve the situation,” the council said.
Three witnesses, former close collaborators of “SBF”, all affirmed, at the hearing, that the former little genius of cryptocurrencies had given instructions so that Alameda could use, almost without limits, in the pockets of clients from FTX.
“It’s a fraud,” said Nicolas Roos. “It’s theft, pure and simple.”
“Taking money from clients, even if you intend to return it, that is still fraud,” described the deputy prosecutor.
“Each time, he chose to go even further, to dig an even deeper hole” rather than trying to redress the situation, summarized Nicolas Roos.
In September 2022, after learning that Alameda owed some $13.7 billion to FTX clients, the accused chose to make several hundred million dollars’ worth of investments and grant himself personal loans.
The prosecutor also returned to a series of statements, false according to the prosecution, made by “SBF”.
In early November, with $8.1 billion missing from FTX and the company on the verge of bankruptcy, he tweeted: “FTX is doing well. Assets are sufficient. »
For Nicolas Roos, “this shows that his intentions were criminal”.
“This file does not prove that Sam acted with criminal intent,” Mark Cohen replied.