SBF Trial Update With Tiffany Fong! Not Looking Good For Sam

"I think that Sam's testimony started off moderately strong... I thought it started off somewhat well just because prior to that we hadn't heard his side of the story so that might have helped sew maybe a seed of doubt in some of the jurors' minds."

"his testimony then sort of progressed into him giving his retelling of some of the key points in other witness testimonies and sort of his his retelling of some conversations that happened between him and Gary Wong NAD Singh Adam yud Didia and Caroline Ellison and to me that's when I started to feel a little bit more doubtful of Sam because all of those testimonies of the other insiders felt very credible at the time and for Sam to sort of be retelling them but saying that they sort of kind of insinuating that they misunderstood him or that they're maybe lying in their testimonies it kind of became a he said she said when at the end of the day I think that if anyone has to choose between if Sam is lying or anyone else is lying I think that the jury is more like to believe that Sam is the one who's lying in those retellings so that's where I thought it became a little bit more dicey for him"

"so I kind of think that Sam taking the stand is his only shot at sort of getting his narrative out there and maybe one person might sort of believe that or not they don't actually even have to believe him they just have to not think that he's guilty Beyond A Reasonable Doubt so there really just does have to be that Tiny Seed of Doubt"

"I think that as we've seen and I don't know if if all viewers have watched a lot of Sam's previous interviews but Sam has certainly been hinging on this margin trading excuse and saying that he thought that he was using the funds of customers who agreed to margin trading but that excuse has been proven pretty much false time and time again throughout the trial"

"Sam approached his General Council Canon and asked hey can you help me sort of brainstorm some potential legal justifications for how FTX customer funds ended up at Alam which is problematic for a lot of reasons I mean obviously that insinuates that Sam previously was using those customer funds but did not think it was legal I I don't obviously that wasn't explicitly stated in court so I don't want to make too harsh a claim on that but obviously him sort of frantically asking for help on legal justifications insinuates that he didn't think it was legal before that day"

"so Ken Sun The General Counsel came back to him saying okay I can give you a couple of theoretical legal justifications but none of these justifications actually line up with the facts or the numbers of how much of how many FTX customer funds ended up at alamer research so one of those theoretical justifications that Ken Sun gave was pointing to the terms of service and pointing to yeah FTX did have a margin trading facility or program so you could theoretically argue that these funds were you know used because of this margin trading program but Sam the amount of funds again it doesn't line up with the number so this excuse is essentially null and does not work"

"but I will say that he was aware that his general counsel told him that this excuse is theoretical and doesn't line up with the facts but proceeded but Sam proceeded to use it on multiple interviews and is still using it in court and in his testimony"

"given that many of FTX and alam's internal Communications took place over messaging apps like signal and were thus automatically deleted this strategy of spilling his guts to seemingly anyone who would listen now seems even more idiotic as coindesk put it quote had he stayed quiet one imagines this portion of the case could have taken a strikingly different course indeed"

"Several times during Monday's lengthy cross-examination SP SPF was reduced to answers like quote I don't recall now not remembering is unlikely to prove a particularly effective strategy for convincing the jury of his innocence"

"it looks like SPF is going to have to be very lucky to avoid a unanimous verdict of guilty on all counts if he is found guilty on all counts then he's looking at decades in jail even though the general consensus seems to be that a 100e plus sentence is perhaps a little unlikely"

"the prosecution has done a brilliant job so far and this continued as they finally got the chance to cross-examine SBF over the last couple of days now Monday's grilling would have been particularly ging for S SPF defense team given that most of the prosecution's ammunition came from the numerous media appearances he had made as part of his socalled apology tour following ftxs collapse"

"nishad sing's testimony actually in my opinion became sort of the star of the show um nishad just had a lot of very vivid recounts of his private conversations with Sam bakman freed and told to the like recounted those conversations in great detail and was giving very Vivid explanations of where Sam was sitting what his facial expressions were like and it sounds like nishad Singh was the only one who actually confronted and stood up to Sam throughout all of this"

"nishad claimed that he found out about the use of FTX customer funds in around September of 2022 and he says or he claimed that he had a balcony a conversation with Sam on a balcony where he basically confronted Sam about the um use of customer funds and Sam seemed to acknowledge it and didn't seem surprised by any of this"

"according to her testimony SPF quote directed me to commit those crimes"

"she also confirmed that the use of FTX customer funds by alamida had been going on for longer than many imagined since at least 2021 when they were spent on buying back $2 billion of Ft X shares from binance"

"apparently in some of her early conversations with prosecutors she did tell them that apparently Sam might not have been aware that some Legacy customers of FTX were still iring money to elamer research in 2022 because at that point FTX already had bank accounts"

"they're basically saying look FTX was sort of a startup and Sam was always acting in good faith and thought that every decision he made was reasonable at the time but um it's basically like trying to build a plane while flying it which is an analogy that they actually used in their opening statement"

"and then they have to get into sort of technical jargon they have to explain hey well FTX had a margin trading facility and um Sam thought he was using the amount of of using funds that were those who were coming from those who agreed to margin trading Etc so overall they're having to sort of explain some minutia and Technical jargon that might sort of fly over the jury's head"

"it looks as though the facts are on their side obviously 8.6 billion dollars or so are missing so they just have a very straightforward forward easy to understand streamlined argument"

"when they're presenting their case they're essentially saying look billions of dollars are missing this man essentially defrauded customers and investors by stealing billions of dollars of customer funds to enrich his himself by buying real estate making political donations uh making Venture Capital investments Etc"

"this lavish spending included things like that Miami Heat deal Tiff mentioned earlier as well as splashing out on real estate in the Bahamas celebrity endorsements political donations and so much else besides using money from ftxs customers"

"Sam is due to stand trial on that and other charges next year"