A lawyer’s advice to criminal defendants: Don’t take the stand, or do you have to take the bullet? The case of James Bankman-Fried
The default advice to any criminal defendant, says Christopher LaVigne, a partner at law firm Withers, is not to take the stand. In a court setting, no matter how well prepared the testimony, it is “virtually impossible to predict what’s going to happen, particularly in cross-examination.” The government may be able to show Bankman-Fried lied on the stand, and that can be used in the final stages of the trial. In the event he is convicted, meanwhile, the judge would take into account any perjury in sentencing.
The US government has accused Bankman-Fried of masterminding a multibillion-dollar fraud, whereby funds belonging to FTX customers were swept into a sibling company, Alameda Research, and either used to back up risky crypto bets or spent on debt repayments, personal loans, political donations, and luxuries of various sorts. He’s facing seven charges at the trial about the alleged fraud.
He argued from the beginning that some of his trusted lieutenants failed to do their jobs properly.
Prosecutors also argue the former FTX CEO used the money to enrich himself. Some jurors saw pictures of Bankman- Fried’s $35 million apartment in The Bahamas, and they were told he bought other expensive real estate for friends and family.
The government has had star witnesses make its case, including Caroline Ellison. She was Alameda Research’s CEO and Bankman-Fried’s on-again, off-again girlfriend.
She remembered that Bankman- Fried said he would lose $10 million if a coin came up tails, as long as he could win more than $10 million.
Bankman-Fried was willing to take the chance if the world depended on a coin flip with tails meaning it would be destroyed.
A Black Hole Look at Bankman-Fried’s White-Collar Neglecting Insights into Ellison’s Private Writings
Most white-collar defense attorneys don’t want their clients to take the stand. That’s because they’d face cross-examination — and Helou says Bankman-Fried may not fully appreciate how difficult that can be.
“A lot of times, they think that they are the smartest people in the room,” Helou says of business executives. This isn’t a room that he’s used to.
On top of that, prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York have a reputation for being some of the best lawyers in the country.
Bankman-Fried regularly talked to reporters during FTX’s heyday, and after it imploded in November, he sat down for TV interviews. He could not keep him quiet even after his arrest.
Free on a $250 million bail, Bankman-Fried invited reporters to his parents’ home in Northern California, where he was under house arrest, and he continued to meet regularly with the author Michael Lewis, who has since published a book about him.
Prosecutors says he had more than 1,000 phone calls with reporters. Bankman-Fried also posted on social media and even started his own e-mail newsletter.
The judge presiding at the trial had enough when he was found to have secretly shared Ellison’s private writings with a reporter for The New York Times.