Sam Bankman-Fried has little to lose by bucking conventional wisdom and taking the stand at his criminal fraud trial, following weeks of testimony that he stole billions of dollars from unwitting customers of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange.
Doing so would expose Bankman-Fried to probing cross-examination by prosecutors who would come armed with documents, messages and testimony from cooperating witnesses that they can use to attack his credibility.of him at the trial, he may bet that he can convince just one juror that he did not intend to commit fraud, legal experts said."It's not irrational to testify, if you think you are going down because the evidence is so overwhelming," defense attorney Ilene Jaroslaw said.
For Bankman-Fried to be convicted of fraud, prosecutors must show beyond a reasonable doubt that he intended to defraud FTX customers or investors. The 12 jurors must agree unanimously to return a verdict. The 31-year-old former billionaire has already taken an unusual approach for a criminal defendant. Instead of laying low after he was charged, he published blog posts on his view of what went wrong and met with several journalists., a month after his arrest on U.S. fraud charges.
Ellison was one of three former members of Bankman-Fried's inner circle who testified at trial, saying they committed crimes with him and adding to a portrayal by the government that Bankman-Fried's attorneys have called a "cartoon of a villain."
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