SBF Acted in ‘Good Faith’ - Lawyers Make Closing Statements

3 Nov 2023 by Rory Kejzerko 4 min read

Yesterday - November 1st - saw the prosecution and defence attorneys in the ongoing Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) criminal trial make their closing arguments.

The day was essentially a run-through of the trial’s month-long testimonies and evidence presentations, where as expected, lead lawyers Nicholas Roos (prosecution) and Mark Cohen (defence) did all that they could to sway jurors in favour of their desired outcome.

Prosecution Vs. Defence: A Back & Forth

The Prosecution

Nicholas Roos opened by stating that there’s ‘no dispute’ that billions of dollars worth of FTX funds went AWOL - where further along the line, he then told jurors that “you'd have to ignore the evidence to believe his [SBF] story”.

In a rather confident ploy to get the guilty verdict they’re after, the prosecution frequently reminded jurors to keep three questions in mind throughout their decision making process: where the money went, what happened, and who was responsible.

It also dialled-in on its belief that SBF was the sole culprit, and that FTX was a “pyramid of deceit by the defendant built on lies and false promises”. To do so, Roos downplayed the prospect of Caroline Ellison being an accomplice (as she only ever worked for Alameda Research), whilst he also stated that fellow testifiers Gary Wang and Nishad Singh were only ever employees.

To paint a deeper guilty picture for the jury, a three-and-a-half-hour summation was made. This entailed a rundown of the ‘special privileges’ FTX gave to Alameda regarding access to customer funds, SBF’s relentless investment ventures (despite having an unhealthy balance sheet), his instruction to Alameda to pay back third-party loans following a June 2022 market crash, his alleged involvement in creating ‘fake’ Alameda balance sheets for lenders, and more.

Roos also alluded to the frustrating and unproductive nature of SBF’s time on the stand - an issue that was heightened by the fact that he turned into a ‘different person’ when posed questions by his own lawyer. Here, Roos attempted to pick holes in SBF’s testimony, which further led to him accusing the MIT graduate of lying in court, as well as on Twitter when tweeting ‘assets are fine’ on November 7th 2022 (despite confirming in a private memo the next day that the company had ‘enough to process 1/3 of remaining client money’).

The Defence

With SBF seemingly on the cusp of tears throughout the day, the defence’s closing remarks touched on the government-orchestrated public perception of their client, as well as his ‘good faith’ throughout FTX’s entire lifespan.

First and foremost - and in a response to the prosecution explicitly accusing their client of lying to jurors - Mark Cohen replied by stating that SBF is no more than a ‘villain’ that’s part of a government-spun Hollywood movie. Additionally, he claimed that FTX’s fraudulent nature was a ‘false premise’ that was ushered-in ‘from the jump’.

In trying to downplay the evidence put forward, Cohen stated that much of it - including SBF’s hair, clothes, and information regarding his sex life - have no relevance as to ‘how his exchange worked’. Cohen also poked holes in the credibility of the aforementioned testifiers, as all of such are promised reduced sentences due to their willingness to testify (something that Cohen said the prosecution failed to mention during its multi-hour summation).

In admitting some blame, Cohen openly stated that "FTX sure should've had a better-built-out risk management system” - however that being said, such framing was perhaps done deliberately to reinforce its chosen ‘good faith’ defence. This is because Cohen followed-up by saying that SBF displayed such an attitude when contemplating the ‘difficult’ decision to shut down Alameda, as well as when generally starting and operating “two multi-billion-dollar businesses in a new market”.

In conclusion, ‘good faith’ is the all-encompassing premise of SBF’s defence against the seven in-question charges (which include two counts of wire fraud and five counts of conspiracy tied to the operation and collapse of FTX and Alameda Research). In turn - and when it comes to ‘who's to blame’ - Cohen and his team attribute this to ‘real world miscommunications,’ ‘mistakes,’ and ‘delays’…however in the most literal sense, we’re not sure how that’ll go down in court.

Moving forwards, jurors could begin deliberating the disgraced crypto figure’s fate by the end of the week - with November 8th, almost exactly one year on from FTX’s bankruptcy filing, being the proposed verdict date.

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