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Late Monday, legally embroiled FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried moved to dismiss the majority of criminal charges lobbed against him by the United States government after his cryptocurrency exchange went bankrupt in 2022.
In documents filed in a Manhattan federal court, lawyers from the law firm Cohen & Gresser LLP shared Bankman-Fried's first official legal defense. Lawyers accused the US of a "troubling" and "classic rush to judgment," claiming that the government didn't even wait to receive "millions of documents" and "other evidence" against Bankman-Fried before "improperly seeking" to turn "civil and regulatory issues into federal crimes."
After FTX's collapse last year, federal prosecutors acted quickly to intervene, within a month alleging that Bankman-Fried was stealing billions in customer funds, defrauding investors, committing bank and wire fraud, providing improper loans, misleading lenders, transmitting money without a license, making illegal campaign contributions, bribing China officials, and other crimes. Through it all, Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty. Now, in his motion to dismiss, Bankman-Fried has requested an oral argument to "fight these baseless charges" and "clear his name." He's asking the court to dismiss 10 out of 13 charges, arguing that federal prosecutors have failed to substantiate most of their claims.
"The Government's haste and apparent willingness to proceed without having all the relevant facts and information has produced an indictment that is not only improperly brought but legally flawed and should be dismissed," Bankman-Fried's lawyers argued in one of several memos filed yesterday.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by SomeRandomGeek on Thursday May 11 2023, @03:42PM (3 children)
It is true that intent to deceive is only one of the five elements needed to prove fraud, and is not illegal by itself. https://www.newyorklitigator.com/fraud.html#:~:text=The%20elements%20of%20a%20fraud,civil%20wrong%20and%20a%20crime. [newyorklitigator.com]
But I wonder which of the other four elements SBF's lawyers think they are going to weasel out on?
The making of a statement? Clearly he did that.
The falsity of the statement? Also blindingly obvious.
Reasonable reliance on the statement by the injured party? Hmm....
Injury sustained as a result of the reliance? Bigtime.
The only element that seems remotely in doubt is that reliance on the statement was reasonable. Are they perhaps trying to argue that their client was so obviously a lying piece of shit that it was unreasonable for anyone to ever rely on anything he said? That would explain the disparaging of their own client.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2023, @08:32PM
You can just read the documents to find out the answer to this question. They are not disparaging their own client. TFA is very misleading.
For example, one of charges TFA makes misleading statements about regards the charge of bank fraud conspiracy. Defense argues that the government's allegations to not meet the elements of this crime because the bank was not deprived of any property, and that past decisions bind the court to reject the government's alleged harm to the bank as insufficient to meet the requirements of this crime. Obviously this is a subtle question of law, really nobody but the court can answer it.
But one thing that is not subtle is that the defendant is most certainly not admitting to any other elements such as the factual question of whether or not defendant actually lied to the bank.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday May 11 2023, @08:50PM (1 child)
Ah...the Tucker Carlson Defense [npr.org], a bold gambit!
(Score: 2) by mth on Friday May 12 2023, @12:57AM
Yes, it reminded me of that as well.
Another similarity, although probably with less real-world use: Rimmer's trial [youtube.com] from Red Dwarf.