Judge blasts Sam Bankman-Fried for 'interesting' answers on the witness stand to questions about using FTX customer fund

Source: Business Insider

Judge blasts Sam Bankman-Fried for 'interesting' answers on the witness stand to questions about using FTX customer funds

Katie Balevic,Jacob Shamsian
Thu, October 26, 2023 at 7:30 PM EDT·6 min read

• Sam Bankman-Fried took the stand in his trial in a rare hearing without the jury's presence.
• During questioning, he often meandered, dodged, and rephrased questions.
• The judge will take the night to decide whether the jury can hear Bankman-Fried's testimony.

In an unusual, tense hearing Thursday afternoon, the judge in Sam Bankman-Fried's criminal fraud trial criticized his "interesting," often circuitous answers to questions about whether he used funds belonging to customers of his cryptocurrency exchange for his own benefit.

Bankman-Fried took the witness stand in a downtown Manhattan courtroom after jurors were sent home for the afternoon. US District Judge Lewis Kaplan offered him the opportunity to testify about his conversations with lawyers during his time at FTX, which Bankman-Fried's current legal team argues is evidence that he acted by-the-book and in good faith when the cryptocurrency exchange collapsed in late 2022.

Kaplan has indicated in previous rulings that those discussions have little to do with the charges at hand — that Bankman-Fried allegedly defrauded customers and investors, and laundered the money for his own benefit — and should not be allowed to be presented to the jury.

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Read more: https://news.yahoo.com/judge-blasts-sam-bankman-fried-233032155.html