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I was reading the trial report by Inner City Press. The AUSAs were incredibly thorough and strategic. The evidences were air-tight, the cross-examination was ma

I was reading the trial report by Inner City Press. The AUSAs were incredibly thorough and strategic. The evidences were air-tight, the cross-examination was masterfully controlled with precision and incisiveness, and of course the closing argument was forceful. It was a great joy to read the report, as if I was watching an extended episode of The Good Fight. On the other hand, the defense was really weak, quite hand-wavy, and resorted to arguing about not-so-irrelevant specifics like how hard SBF worked. The closing arguments of the defense can be summarized as SBF was not guilty because he spent all the customer money on investment, on political donation, on private plane, and on company-owned real estate properties. They were company expenditures to build a business, not for personal gains. Therefore, SBF did not have any intention of committing a crime.

hintymad 3y ago
And the AUSA rightly made crypto a non-issue. This is not about crypto but simple fraud. As a result, people who are not familiar with crypto can still easily understand the trial.
ekianjo 3y ago
> customer money on investment, on political donation, So... money laundering?
akira2501 3y ago
> The evidences were air-tight SBF is a dumb criminal, who then screwed over everyone he abused into creating this theft. I honestly can't imagine many easier setups, less sympathetic defendants, or parades of pissed off co-workers willing to put the knife in him before he got it in them. > SBF did not have any intention of committing a crime. His fraud started early on, and he used the same tactic over and over again. He lied to his customers about how their funds were held, then abused them whenever any problem involving money came up in his life. Least self aware villan ever created.
- Terr_ 3y ago
  "Your honor, I never intended to commit a crime, I simply intended to start with mere childish mistakes and then exponentially escalate their damage and viciousness throughout my entire life without any repercussions. Is that so wrong?"
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
bmitc 3y ago
The defense really had no option. Several of Bankman-Fried's previous defense teams quit on him due to his behavior. Even in this trial, during a session with just the judge, the defense made an objection to a question, the judge sustained it, but Bankman-Fried answered anyways. His own defense team asked him where had he been this entire trial because the objection was sustained, you didn't have to answer that. Bankman-Fried retorted that he felt like he had to answer that one. Just think of how crazy you need to be to frustrate the only lawyer who would take Ghislaine Maxwell's case. At the end of the day, the defense had an unwinnable case. Their defendent is an idiot, and all of his co-conspirators plead guilty to all charges.
- hintymad 3y ago
  Yeah, I remember that. It was appalling.
- bambax 3y ago
  Well said. > Several of Bankman-Fried's previous defense teams quit on him I remember SBF told someone at some point during his ill-advised media tour post-collapse, that his lawyers could "go fuck themselves". But I was wondering what happened then with said lawyer... Is there a list somewhere of the teams that quit?
  - planede 3y ago
    They probably took half of the advise and just went.
  - Kye 3y ago
    I hoped there would be a "Category: lawyers who fired famous clients" or something like it, but no luck. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_from_representation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_from_representation
    - afavour 3y ago
      I imagine it’s mutually beneficial to keep quiet. Lawyers don’t want to be known as “the company that keeps firing clients”, clients don’t want it known how many lawyers have fired them.
helsinkiandrew 3y ago
> They were company expenditures to build a business, not for personal gains I’d guess that the defence team knew they’d loose and this was in some way the start of their sentencing reduction plan: “the money was stolen to cover mostly business losses and to keep FTX going rather than for personal gain”.
- verulito 3y ago
  So he never planned on gaining if the company was successful? What a dumb argument
paganel 3y ago
> on political donation, Fact is, this could have helped him and his company, eventually. Another two or three years of very sympathetic (bought) politicians on his side and his business could have become legit as a result of those politicians forcing the liquidation/closure of almost all SBF's competitors (certainly Binance would have become bust), and the US "standing behind" FTX as a beloved crypto assed in the fight against China. I.e. very, very similar to what's happening now with AI and with people like Sam Altman. Which is to say that I'm surprised to see that the defence hasn't pushed more on that "SBF was just a pawn in the hands of very corrupt politicians"-card, that could have worked given a politically divided jury.
- RandomLensman 3y ago
  How would that pawn angle have worked? Politicians forced lending backdoors and random number generators into production code?
- jeremyjh 3y ago
  It isn't a legal defense for the charges he's facing. He can't take money out of a customer's brokerage account and spend it on anything, and there is no political donation that could make that legal.
  - paganel 3y ago
    Take two or three steps back, and reason like this (if you’re SBF’s defenders, that is): the evil Democrats have made SBF do their dirty political doings for them because, well, they’re evil -> try and turn this whole case into a political thing (see the evil Democrats from before, also see Dreyfus from 100 years ago) -> try to turn SBF into a political cause celebre, again, like Dreyfus 100 years back -> 2024 comes and there are chances that those hating the evil Democrats I had mentioned are in the White House -> with SBF a political cause celebre put in prison by those Democrats there would be by then very big chances for a presidential pardon, because by then this would have transformed into a political issue, not a simple “some guy stole a lot of money”. For added chances of success also try to find some pro-Palestine social media statuses or anything similar just hinting to that in the past of the district attorneys and federal agency people who had anything to do with this whole trial, and this being the very liberal Southern District of NY of course that there are big chances for that type of content to be found, and in so doing further turning SBF into a political prisoner instead of just a money swindler. That’s as good a strategy that he could have had given the circumstances, i.e. going for a future presidential pardon and turning his trial into a political case, because, technically, of course that he did all of those things and that by the rules that apply to big money swindlers he should spend the rest of his days mostly in prison, but that’s the whole thing, if he still wants to be free anytime soon his defenders should have turned this trial into something totally different than a big money swindler case. Of course, that’s also how OJ got out of all the mess he had put himself into the first time around, i.e. because his trial had very rapidly turned into a political case, it was not about a murder case anymore.
vishnugupta 3y ago
To be fair SBF convicted himself on a platter. Only he knows what made him think he'd get away by facing trial. Maybe he was just dumb, overconfident, ill-advised, or a combination of everything.
- suoduandao3 3y ago
  My money's on a bad case of grandiosity, he's clearly got an unusual appetite for risk.
- Tangurena2 3y ago
  He is one of those people who think they can talk their way out of everything. Everything is not only negotiable, but the only possible "truth" is what they are saying right now (yesterday's "truth"? "You're remembering that incorrectly - I never said that!"). I hated working for people like that, and I'd feel like I needed to take a shower after every meeting. If you only encounter them occasionally, a normal person would just think "wow, they're really charismatic". Daily, repeated contacts with them crawl under your skin. I'm grateful that the word "gaslighting" has entered common vocabulary as I didn't have words to describe them (back then).
  - jeffwask 3y ago
    You can only hear you're a genius so many times before you start believing your own press.
  - guhidalg 3y ago
    Gaslighting is a such a great phrase. It's a very specific kind of cognitive dissonance that is so common in the workplace. I find the worst gaslighters are "leaders" who surreptitiously change their stance on something without communicating why. Over time everyone under them just loses the motivation to do more than the bare minimum because they don't know if the goal will match the leader's requests.
    - suoduandao3 3y ago
      I'm reminded of Neal Stephenson's description of Rhetors and Incantors in 'Anathem' - "Rhetors could change the past and were eager to do so, Incantors could change the future and were very cautious using that ability". Could be a parable about leadership styles.
knorker 3y ago
Ah, the old "growing a business by buying your parents a mansion" investment.
- evan_ 3y ago
  I can be so much more effective at my job if I don’t have to worry about my parents living situation!
  - riversflow 3y ago
    This would actually be convincing if SBF did have ready wealthy parents, lol.
scott_w 3y ago
> On the other hand, the defense was really weak, quite hand-wavy, and resorted to arguing about not-so-irrelevant specifics like how hard SBF worked. To be fair to SBF's lawyers, you're going to have a hard time coming up with a good defence when your defendant is bang to rights.
pclmulqdq 3y ago
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the AUSA's performance here was not particularly impressive. Yes, they constructed an airtight case, but to do that, they handed out immunity deals like candy to all of SBF's co-conspirators. Sure, they got their guy, but it almost looks like they wanted to craft a narrative that puts all of the blame on him. Because of that, several other huge fraudsters here (eg Caroline Ellison) get to walk. The US attorneys seem to have set up SBF to be the fall guy, while being far too soft on everyone who conspired with him.
- josephd79 3y ago
  I agree, didn't they admit they knew what they were doing? They should all do the same amount of time.
  - 8ytecoder 3y ago
    You’re basically getting rid of prisoner’s dilemma. No one will ever snitch.
  - tim333 3y ago
    Speaking as a victim, this seems to have been basically Sam's doing. Fair enough his underlings didn't shop him but that's a lesser offence.
  - ncallaway 3y ago
    That would absolutely remove the incentive for anyone to cooperate with the government ever again. Such a system would make it nearly impossible to proesecute the higher levels of a criminal enterprise. It’s easy to prosecute the foot-soldiers of a criminal enterprise with outside evidence. The leadership of it typically requires testimony from others within the enterprise. So, your approach of eliminating all benefits to criminal defendants for cooperating with the government would *massively* enable organized crime, and would end with a criminal justice system that comes down hard on the low-level members, while giving the organizers and planners a walk.
  - kawhah 3y ago
    SBF could simply have chosen to plead guilty, then this would have been roughly what happened.
scotty79 3y ago
Bribing politicians with donations depicted as business development oficially in court. US is such a weird country.
- callalex 3y ago
  I think it’s important to note that such a depiction failed spectacularly.
napierzaza 3y ago
[dead]
mrangle 3y ago
sigh...convicted by adjective. Sad to see and a common trap for young entrepreneurs.
mcguire 3y ago
One comment I saw pointed out that the verdict was returned in a spectacularly short time, for precisely those reasons.

hintymad 3y ago

And the AUSA rightly made crypto a non-issue. This is not about crypto but simple fraud. As a result, people who are not familiar with crypto can still easily understand the trial.

ekianjo 3y ago

> customer money on investment, on political donation, So... money laundering?

akira2501 3y ago

> The evidences were air-tight SBF is a dumb criminal, who then screwed over everyone he abused into creating this theft. I honestly can't imagine many easier setups, less sympathetic defendants, or parades of pissed off co-workers willing to put the knife in him before he got it in them. > SBF did not have any intention of committing a crime. His fraud started early on, and he used the same tactic over and over again. He lied to his customers about how their funds were held, then abused them whenever any problem involving money came up in his life. Least self aware villan ever created.

Terr_ 3y ago
"Your honor, I never intended to commit a crime, I simply intended to start with mere childish mistakes and then exponentially escalate their damage and viciousness throughout my entire life without any repercussions. Is that so wrong?"
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

bmitc 3y ago

The defense really had no option. Several of Bankman-Fried's previous defense teams quit on him due to his behavior. Even in this trial, during a session with just the judge, the defense made an objection to a question, the judge sustained it, but Bankman-Fried answered anyways. His own defense team asked him where had he been this entire trial because the objection was sustained, you didn't have to answer that. Bankman-Fried retorted that he felt like he had to answer that one. Just think of how crazy you need to be to frustrate the only lawyer who would take Ghislaine Maxwell's case. At the end of the day, the defense had an unwinnable case. Their defendent is an idiot, and all of his co-conspirators plead guilty to all charges.

hintymad 3y ago
Yeah, I remember that. It was appalling.
bambax 3y ago
Well said. > Several of Bankman-Fried's previous defense teams quit on him I remember SBF told someone at some point during his ill-advised media tour post-collapse, that his lawyers could "go fuck themselves". But I was wondering what happened then with said lawyer... Is there a list somewhere of the teams that quit?
- planede 3y ago
  They probably took half of the advise and just went.
- Kye 3y ago
  I hoped there would be a "Category: lawyers who fired famous clients" or something like it, but no luck. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_from_representation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_from_representation
  - afavour 3y ago
    I imagine it’s mutually beneficial to keep quiet. Lawyers don’t want to be known as “the company that keeps firing clients”, clients don’t want it known how many lawyers have fired them.

helsinkiandrew 3y ago

> They were company expenditures to build a business, not for personal gains I’d guess that the defence team knew they’d loose and this was in some way the start of their sentencing reduction plan: “the money was stolen to cover mostly business losses and to keep FTX going rather than for personal gain”.

verulito 3y ago
So he never planned on gaining if the company was successful? What a dumb argument

paganel 3y ago

> on political donation, Fact is, this could have helped him and his company, eventually. Another two or three years of very sympathetic (bought) politicians on his side and his business could have become legit as a result of those politicians forcing the liquidation/closure of almost all SBF's competitors (certainly Binance would have become bust), and the US "standing behind" FTX as a beloved crypto assed in the fight against China. I.e. very, very similar to what's happening now with AI and with people like Sam Altman. Which is to say that I'm surprised to see that the defence hasn't pushed more on that "SBF was just a pawn in the hands of very corrupt politicians"-card, that could have worked given a politically divided jury.

RandomLensman 3y ago
How would that pawn angle have worked? Politicians forced lending backdoors and random number generators into production code?
jeremyjh 3y ago
It isn't a legal defense for the charges he's facing. He can't take money out of a customer's brokerage account and spend it on anything, and there is no political donation that could make that legal.
- paganel 3y ago
  Take two or three steps back, and reason like this (if you’re SBF’s defenders, that is): the evil Democrats have made SBF do their dirty political doings for them because, well, they’re evil -> try and turn this whole case into a political thing (see the evil Democrats from before, also see Dreyfus from 100 years ago) -> try to turn SBF into a political cause celebre, again, like Dreyfus 100 years back -> 2024 comes and there are chances that those hating the evil Democrats I had mentioned are in the White House -> with SBF a political cause celebre put in prison by those Democrats there would be by then very big chances for a presidential pardon, because by then this would have transformed into a political issue, not a simple “some guy stole a lot of money”. For added chances of success also try to find some pro-Palestine social media statuses or anything similar just hinting to that in the past of the district attorneys and federal agency people who had anything to do with this whole trial, and this being the very liberal Southern District of NY of course that there are big chances for that type of content to be found, and in so doing further turning SBF into a political prisoner instead of just a money swindler. That’s as good a strategy that he could have had given the circumstances, i.e. going for a future presidential pardon and turning his trial into a political case, because, technically, of course that he did all of those things and that by the rules that apply to big money swindlers he should spend the rest of his days mostly in prison, but that’s the whole thing, if he still wants to be free anytime soon his defenders should have turned this trial into something totally different than a big money swindler case. Of course, that’s also how OJ got out of all the mess he had put himself into the first time around, i.e. because his trial had very rapidly turned into a political case, it was not about a murder case anymore.

vishnugupta 3y ago

To be fair SBF convicted himself on a platter. Only he knows what made him think he'd get away by facing trial. Maybe he was just dumb, overconfident, ill-advised, or a combination of everything.

suoduandao3 3y ago
My money's on a bad case of grandiosity, he's clearly got an unusual appetite for risk.
Tangurena2 3y ago
He is one of those people who think they can talk their way out of everything. Everything is not only negotiable, but the only possible "truth" is what they are saying right now (yesterday's "truth"? "You're remembering that incorrectly - I never said that!"). I hated working for people like that, and I'd feel like I needed to take a shower after every meeting. If you only encounter them occasionally, a normal person would just think "wow, they're really charismatic". Daily, repeated contacts with them crawl under your skin. I'm grateful that the word "gaslighting" has entered common vocabulary as I didn't have words to describe them (back then).
- jeffwask 3y ago
  You can only hear you're a genius so many times before you start believing your own press.
- guhidalg 3y ago
  Gaslighting is a such a great phrase. It's a very specific kind of cognitive dissonance that is so common in the workplace. I find the worst gaslighters are "leaders" who surreptitiously change their stance on something without communicating why. Over time everyone under them just loses the motivation to do more than the bare minimum because they don't know if the goal will match the leader's requests.
  - suoduandao3 3y ago
    I'm reminded of Neal Stephenson's description of Rhetors and Incantors in 'Anathem' - "Rhetors could change the past and were eager to do so, Incantors could change the future and were very cautious using that ability". Could be a parable about leadership styles.

knorker 3y ago

Ah, the old "growing a business by buying your parents a mansion" investment.

evan_ 3y ago
I can be so much more effective at my job if I don’t have to worry about my parents living situation!
- riversflow 3y ago
  This would actually be convincing if SBF did have ready wealthy parents, lol.

scott_w 3y ago

> On the other hand, the defense was really weak, quite hand-wavy, and resorted to arguing about not-so-irrelevant specifics like how hard SBF worked. To be fair to SBF's lawyers, you're going to have a hard time coming up with a good defence when your defendant is bang to rights.

pclmulqdq 3y ago

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the AUSA's performance here was not particularly impressive. Yes, they constructed an airtight case, but to do that, they handed out immunity deals like candy to all of SBF's co-conspirators. Sure, they got their guy, but it almost looks like they wanted to craft a narrative that puts all of the blame on him. Because of that, several other huge fraudsters here (eg Caroline Ellison) get to walk. The US attorneys seem to have set up SBF to be the fall guy, while being far too soft on everyone who conspired with him.

josephd79 3y ago
I agree, didn't they admit they knew what they were doing? They should all do the same amount of time.
- 8ytecoder 3y ago
  You’re basically getting rid of prisoner’s dilemma. No one will ever snitch.
- tim333 3y ago
  Speaking as a victim, this seems to have been basically Sam's doing. Fair enough his underlings didn't shop him but that's a lesser offence.
- ncallaway 3y ago
  That would absolutely remove the incentive for anyone to cooperate with the government ever again. Such a system would make it nearly impossible to proesecute the higher levels of a criminal enterprise. It’s easy to prosecute the foot-soldiers of a criminal enterprise with outside evidence. The leadership of it typically requires testimony from others within the enterprise. So, your approach of eliminating all benefits to criminal defendants for cooperating with the government would *massively* enable organized crime, and would end with a criminal justice system that comes down hard on the low-level members, while giving the organizers and planners a walk.
- kawhah 3y ago
  SBF could simply have chosen to plead guilty, then this would have been roughly what happened.

scotty79 3y ago

Bribing politicians with donations depicted as business development oficially in court. US is such a weird country.

callalex 3y ago
I think it’s important to note that such a depiction failed spectacularly.

napierzaza 3y ago

[dead]

mrangle 3y ago

sigh...convicted by adjective. Sad to see and a common trap for young entrepreneurs.

mcguire 3y ago

One comment I saw pointed out that the verdict was returned in a spectacularly short time, for precisely those reasons.