
Bankman-Fried Desires 2nd Crack at ‘Bad Lawful Advice’ Protection
Sam Bankman-Fried needs yet another shot at mounting a “bad legal counsel” defense.
In a submitting Monday (Oct. 9) evening, attorneys for the former FTX head have questioned the court’s permission to question enterprise co-founder Gary Wang about legal tips he acquired when agreeing to loans from Alameda Study, FTX’s sister corporation.
As PYMNTS has reported, Judge Lewis Kaplan has already blocked Bankman-Fried from introducing proof in guidance of an “advice of counsel defense” at his trial, which starts its second week on Tuesday (Oct. 10).
“Bankman-Fried and his legal professionals had been hoping to argue that the involvement of FTX’s possess lawyers in numerous of the matters underneath scrutiny belies the capability of the FTX CEO to have acted with felony intent,” that report mentioned.
In the courtroom submitting, the lawyers argue that the prosecution has already gotten Wang to testify about the $200 million to $300 million of financial loans from Alameda, which he utilised for undertaking investments and order of a property in the Bahamas.
Wang experienced told the FBI he “didn’t imagine the attorneys would convey to him to indicator some thing that was unlawful,” the submitting mentioned.
“Mr. Wang’s knowing of the lawyers’ involvement in the loans is straight pertinent to Mr. Bankman-Fried’s good religion and lack of felony intent,” protection lawyers wrote.
“Mr. Wang’s comprehension that these ended up actual financial loans — structured by attorneys and memorialized in formal promissory notes that imposed real fascination payment obligations — is related to rebut the inference that these were being basically sham financial loans directed by Mr. Bankman-Fried to conceal the resource of the funds.”
Wang, FTX’s previous chief engineering officer, is one of a few former large-degree FTX executives who have pleaded responsible to their role in the exchange’s collapse and have agreed to cooperate in the prosecution of what the authorities has identified as “one of the largest fiscal frauds in American historical past.”
In court very last 7 days, Wang testified about what he explained ended up false assurances from Bankman-Fried to FTX consumers and investors that the trade was a safe and sound trading system with refined threat mitigation actions to safeguard consumer belongings.
And whilst he was allegedly informed of the multi-billion-dollar deficit at Alameda Study and FTX, Bankman-Fried consistently informed customers and investors that “FTX was fine.”
“FTX was not wonderful,” Wang advised the jury, “because FTX did not have more than enough assets for consumer withdrawals.”