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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2023, @03:47PM (1 child)
OP here...
I see what you're saying and you are correct, this is communication between the defendant's lawyers and the court, no jury is involved. This is the defendant trying to argue that there is no case here (for the particularly listed charges).
Extending this further though, assuming the court rejects this motion/these motions, this communication becomes part of the record. I am relatively confident that the prosecution will use this information of self-acknowledged assholery in order to manipulate the jury. This will be used to demonstrate aspects of the character of the defendant in order to cast doubt on any and all other statements they make in their own defense.
I was assuming the judge to not accept the motion and thinking ahead of the actual court case in front of a jury.
That all being said, you are indeed accurate in terms of the context of this particular communication.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2023, @07:53PM
Something being part of the record and something being shown to the jury are entirely different things. A jury is asked to make decisions only on actual, factual disputes before the court.
But there is no "self-acknowledge assholery". TFA is really misleading. Despite linking to the actual motions, the authors of TFA appear to not have actually read them. For example, TFA says this:
But what the motion actually says about the bank aplication is:
Nowhere did the defendant "concede" that they lied to the bank. Of course they didn't, that would be stupid! Stating "You allege I did X and that is not a crime" is not even remotely the same thing as saying "I admit to doing X and that is not a crime".
Defendant might be wrong, X might actually be a crime, but that's now up for the judge to decide. If the judge denies the motion, defendant will probably then argue "you have no proof that I did X" (in a motion asking for summary judgement in their favour) which is still not admitting to doing X but I'm sure Ars Technica will try to spin it that way anyway.