Former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman urged that Sam Bankman-Fried avoid a trial and instead seek a plea agreement because the FTX founder had almost no chance of being acquitted by a jury in a trial.
“It will be very difficult, if not impossible, for him to go to trial on these accusations,” said Akerman, who previously worked as an assistant US attorney in the Southern District of New York. “It seemed to me that when you have two insiders who were so close to him basically setting out the strategy, it is very hard to think he could ever be acquitted by a jury.”
Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, and Gary Wang, an FTX cofounder, have agreed to plea pleas and are working with authorities, Akerman said in an interview with Yahoo Finance on Thursday.
Bankman-Fried was detained in the Bahamas earlier this month and extradited to the United States, where he faces federal allegations of scamming investors. On Thursday, he was released on $250 million bond and will live with his parents in Palo Alto, California.
He said: “If I were his attorney, I basically would tell him to cut his losses, take a plea, and make the best deal he could.”
Akerman said Bankman-Fried may strengthen his case and receive a lighter punishment by appearing before the judge to express regret and accept some blame for the FTX disaster.
In the midst of rumors that it had moved client cash to Alameda, FTX folded due to a billion-dollar gap between its liabilities and assets.
Bankman-Fried has said he had no idea what was happening and “didn’t willfully commingle funds” between FTX and Alameda. According to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s complaint, he frequently gave instructions to Ellison to falsify or manipulate the financial situation of the trading firm.
Despite the fact that cryptocurrencies are a relatively new asset class, Akerman claimed the legal situation is simple. He characterised the demise of FTX as essentially a “old conventional swindle” in which individuals were deceived, their money was taken, and it was then moved about “like it was one huge slush fund.” He continued, “There is nothing exceptional about this deception. “This is, after all, a rather conventional deception that has been carried out for many years. Furthermore, it actually doesn’t matter that it is a new asset class.
News Summary:
- Acquittal at trial “almost unthinkable,” thus Sam Bankman-Fried should accept plea agreement, according to former Watergate prosecutor
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