Sam Bankman-Fried to take witness stand in his own defence

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Sam Bankman-Fried intends to take the witness stand in his criminal case over the multibillion-dollar collapse of crypto exchange FTX, a high-stakes bid by the former tycoon to appeal to the New York jury that could soon condemn him to life in prison.

A lawyer for the 31-year-old, who has sat silently for three weeks as several of his former colleagues testified against him, confirmed in a court conference on Wednesday that his client would answer questions under oath, potentially as early as Thursday.

“Our client is also going to be testifying,” Mark Cohen said, adding that the defence could rest as soon as the end of this week.

Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange collapsed last November, leaving an $8bn hole in customer funds. The founder and former chief executive is contesting charges including wire fraud and money laundering.

The decision by Bankman-Fried to testify in his own defence goes against the advice routinely given to white-collar defendants, who are told such a move is likely to backfire. Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes took the stand in her criminal trial in 2021, only to be found guilty by a Californian jury and sentenced to more than a decade behind bars.

But Bankman-Fried has adhered to his own legal playbook ever since the implosion of his crypto empire. In the months leading up to the trial, he granted interviews to journalists and the author Michael Lewis, contacted a potential witness and leaked private documents to the New York Times in an alleged attempt to intimidate Caroline Ellison, his former colleague and girlfriend, who is co-operating with the government.

While prosecutors have sought to paint Bankman-Fried as a serial liar who stole billions of dollars from FTX customers to make risky bets while concealing his activities from investors, his lawyers have argued that their client was acting in “good faith” and was blindsided by a downturn in the crypto market and a mendacious competitor.

Over the course of the trial, jurors have been presented with evidence that Bankman-Fried ordered colleagues to write code that allowed his crypto trading firm Alameda Research to dip into $10bn worth of FTX customer funds, even instructing Ellison to create seven “alternative” balance sheets that disguised this arrangement from lenders.

Lawyers for Bankman-Fried indicated they could call three further witnesses including a lawyer from the Bahamas, a database expert, and someone who could walk the jury through FTX’s organisational chart.