Sam Bankman-Fried has been on trial on prices of fraud and cash laundering for simply over 4 weeks, and the case seems prefer it’s lastly drawing to an in depth. The prosecution started its closing statements on Wednesday.
Assistant U.S. lawyer Nicolas Roos stood in entrance of jurors from 10 a.m. ET till the court docket broke for lunch round 1 p.m. reiterating the prosecution’s case: Bankman-Fried lied, made false guarantees and is answerable for billions of {dollars} misplaced for hundreds of traders on FTX. And on prime of that, that Bankman-Fried had many alternatives to return clear, however didn’t.
At one particularly dramatic second, Roos pointed on the defendant and stated, “Who’s accountable? This man: Samuel Bankman-Fried.” The previous CEO of FTX didn’t look again, however he tilted his head barely.
The prosecutor emphasised the way it was fallacious of FTX to make use of clients’ funds with out their data or approval. “It was a common view: Buyer funds belong to clients and may’t be used,” Roos stated, including that even FTX’s phrases of service acknowledged that customers’ deposits belonged to customers.
In response to the proof, there was a “big distinction between what FTX stated it had for purchasers versus what it really had” and the way billions of {dollars} had been lacking, Roos stated. “This isn’t about difficult crypto [terms]. It’s about deception. It’s about lies. It’s about stealing; greed.”