In a significant development, a federal judge has ruled in favor of the US Department of Justice's request to prevent seven witnesses, representing former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), from testing in his criminal trial. The ruling was issued on September 21 in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York by Judge Lewis Kaplan.
Judge Kaplan provided various legal reasons for supporting the Department of Justice's motions to prohibit these witnesses from testifying. He argued that the proposed testimony was often unclear, irrelevant to the trial, or could potentially confuse the jury about the facts of the case. The list of relevant witnesses in this criminal case includes Thomas Bishop, Brian King, Bradley Smith, Lawrence Acca, Joseph Pimblee, Peter Venera, and Andrew Woody, many of whom have professional backgrounds in the legal field. Documents from August 28 revealed that SBF's legal team could command fees exceeding $1,200 per hour for their testimony.
While Judge Kaplan has left open the possibility of the defense team calling some of these witnesses in response to testimony from government witnesses, he has denied a motion from Bankman-Fried's attorneys to exclude the testimony of Peter Easton, an accounting professor at the University of Notre Dame. Easton was slated to provide insights on FTX client fiat accounts.
Bankman-Fried is gearing up for his first criminal trial, scheduled before Judge Kaplan on October 3. He faces seven criminal charges related to alleged misuse of user funds by FTX and Alameda Research. Additionally, he will face five more criminal charges at a trial set for March 2024. SBF has entered a plea of not guilty to all of these charges.
Following the revocation of his bail by a federal judge in August, SBF has essentially been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, awaiting the commencement of his trial. On September 21, a three-judge panel dismissed an appeal from his legal team, which argued for his early release on primarily First Amendment grounds.
