Disgraced FTX founder and Democrat mega-donor Sam Bankman-Fried said that there were “significant oversights” that contributed to the fall of his digital asset exchange during his New York trial over alleged financial fraud.
Bankman-Fried, who was the second largest donor to the 2020 Joe Biden presidential campaign, took to the stand this week to defend himself, saying that the collapse of FTX was not precipitated by malicious actions but by missteps and lack of organization.
During his testimony, Bankman-Fried admitted that he had made “a number of small mistakes and a number of larger mistakes,” including not having sufficient safeguards in place to guard against risk.
“We didn’t have a chief risk officer,” Bankman-Fried said. “We had a number of people who were involved to some extent in managing risk, but no one dedicated to it, and there were significant oversights.”
Bankman-Fried, who is charged with seven counts of fraud, is accused of stealing billions of dollars from FTX funds for his personal benefit, political donations, and payments to lenders at sister firm Alameda Research.
While being questioned by prosecutors, Bankman-Fried often said he didn’t know the answers to their questions or couldn’t remember. He also attempted to pin part of the blame for the FTX collapse on ex-girlfriend and former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, who has said Bankman-Fried directed her to break the law and that he had bribed China $100 million to unfreeze crypto accounts.
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During questioning on Tuesday from U.S. Assistant Attorney Danielle Sassoon, Bankman-Fried was asked about a tweet from November 7, 2022, that declared “FTX is fine. Assets are fine” and “FTX has enough to cover all client holdings.”
Just four days later, FTX would declare bankruptcy, and Bankman-Fried would apologize to FTX customers, saying that he had “f***ed up.”
Sassoon asked Bankman-Fried about the November 7 post, saying that he had been factoring in money from Alameda’s holdings to pay back customers. “I don’t believe that’s true,” Bankman-Fried said.
Bankman-Fried was also asked about his response to discovering that Alameda owed FTX $8 billion. “I don’t know if this is right or wrong or for better or worse, I wasn’t particularly trying to build out blame for it,” he said.
The jury will start deliberations on Thursday after closing arguments in the case are made on Wednesday.