Convicted cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried was the worst cross-examination witness his defense lawyer had ever observed, he told Bloomberg on Tuesday.
Stanford Law School professor David Mills privately ran Bankman-Fried’s defense, but the FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder did not follow his strategy during cross-examination, Bloomberg reported. A jury found Bankman-Fried guilty on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy-related charges in November and he faces over 100 years in prison, according to The New York Times.. (RELATED: ‘He Directed Me To Commit These Crimes’: Alleged Fraudster’s Ex Blames Him At Trial)
🚨BREAKING: Sam Bankman-Fried’s lawyer says #FTX fraud trial was “almost impossible” to win. pic.twitter.com/HQ1e3nmphd
— Pushpendra Singh Digital (@PushpendraTech) December 12, 2023
“He may be at the very top of the list as the worst person I’ve ever seen do a cross examination,” Mills told Bloomberg. The fact that the prosecution had former high-level founding executives testify against Bankman-Fried posed a nearly insurmountable obstacle, he added.
“I thought it was almost impossible to win a case when three or four founders are all saying you did it,” Mills told Bloomberg. “Even if they’re all lying through their teeth, it’s really, really hard to win a case like that.”
Bankman-Fried’s parents Alan Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried are Stanford Law School professors as well and they have ties to Mills, according to Bloomberg. FTX is suing Bankman-Fried’s parents for allegedly enriching themselves and taking advantage of their influence to illegally fund a Democrat-aligned political action committee called Mind the Gap, according to a lawsuit filed in September.
Bankman-Fried allegedly “misappropriated and embezzled FTX customer deposits, and used billions of dollars in stolen funds for a variety of purposes, including … to help fund over a hundred million dollars in campaign contributions to Democrats and Republicans to seek to influence cryptocurrency regulation,” according to the August indictment against him.
He is currently awaiting sentencing in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, where he has been using packs of fish to purchase services such as a haircut, The Wall Street Journal reported in November. The jail is infamously brutal and he is rooming with former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández and former Secretary of Public Security in Mexico Genaro Garcia Luna, both of whom face drug charges.
Mills and Bankman-Fried’s attorney Mark Cohen did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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