In the latest twist of the crypto courtroom drama, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Sam Bankman-Fried, the bigwig behind FTX, are locking horns over jury instructions for his imminent trial this October. Hold onto your hats, folks, because this legal rollercoaster will take another wild turn!
The DOJ played its hand just a day before Bankman-Fried’s scheduled arraignment on a fresh superseding indictment. They’ve dropped a document cheekily titled “The government’s requests to charge.” And guess what? It’s a mishmash of various jury instructions from previous cases, even borrowing from past statements by Judge Lewis Kaplan, who’s got the hot seat overseeing this case in the Southern District of New York.
If you’ve been living under a rock, here’s the scoop: Bankman-Fried is staring down the barrel of seven different charges. We’re talking wire, securities, commodities fraud conspiracy, and money laundering allegations. And our man? He’s pleaded not guilty to the whole shebang.
But here’s where it gets juicy. In its infinite wisdom, the DOJ has laid out each charge against Bankman-Fried in painstaking detail. They’ve drawn a line in the sand between “substantive crimes” and “crimes of conspiracy.” But Bankman-Fried isn’t taking this lying down. His legal eagles have hinted at a defense strategy suggesting he believed he was on the right side of the law when using customer funds. They’re chalking up any missteps to honest-to-God mistakes in judgment and a few managerial blunders. And let’s be honest, the crypto world is a wild west, with more gray areas than a cloudy day.
But the DOJ? They’re not buying it. They’ve thrown shade at Bankman-Fried’s “advice of counsel” defense. In layperson’s terms? He thinks he was playing by the rules based on chinwags with his legal team. The DOJ’s proposed jury instructions also spilling the tea on what the jurors need to mull over if they’re considering convicting.
They’re talking about evidence of a scheme to defraud and whether Bankman-Fried was knowingly and willingly part of the shenanigans.
The stakes are sky-high as the clock ticks down to the trial in early October. Bankman-Fried’s already tasted the slammer after Judge Kaplan yanked his bond, saying he’d overstepped his bail conditions. Yikes!
