Sam Bankman-Fried had a grin on his face as he entered court on Tuesday morning – clad in a black suit and an uncharacteristically tame (read: closely trimmed) mop of hair. After nine long months, the disgraced crypto founder will finally have the chance to defend himself against a wide array of federal fraud and conspiracy charges tied to the collapse of FTX, his crypto and futures exchange, and Alameda Research, the crypto trading firm he founded and – according to prosecutors – used to illegally re-invest FTX user funds.
The first day of the Bankman-Fried trial was all about voir dire, the process by which a judge, defense, and prosecution worked together to filter more than 80 New Yorkers to a final group of 12 jurors and six alternates. Judge Lewis Kaplan, the judge overseeing the case, peppered the jury pool with questions.
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Underscoring the trial’s location in the heart of New York’s financial district – and the scale of Bankman-Fried’s once-giant crypto empire – the initial list of potential jurors included people whose professions overlapped with Alameda and FTX. One potential juror said she had worked until recently at Signature, the crypto-friendly bank that crumbled earlier this year and had ties to Alameda and FTX. Another member of the jury pool said her employer had invested directly in Alameda and FTX.
“Did your employer make or lose money as a result of their investments?” asked Kaplan. “Lost money,” said the juror.
The goal of Kaplan’s questions was to suss out which of the many prospective jurors would be able to serve impartially – a particularly complex endeavor given the headline-grabbing nature of Bankman-Fried’s crypto collapse, as the judge acknowledged at the start of voir dire: “It would not surprise me if some of you have heard about this case.”
When Kaplan asked if anyone in the room had seen a recent 60 Minutes segment – an interview with author Michael Lewis about his just-released book about the rise and fall of Sam Bankman-Fried – at least seven jurors raised their hands (most members of the jury pool were stationed in…
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