‘A Pyramid of Deceit’: Prosecutors Begin Closing Argument in Sam Bankman-Fried Fraud Trial

Sam Bankman-Fried “told a story, and he lied to you,” a federal prosecutor said Wednesday in his closing argument against the FTX founder.

The U.S. Department of Justice is wrapping up its case against Bankman-Fried after nearly five weeks. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Roos, who is presenting the DOJ’s denouement, opened by noting that there was “no dispute” that billions of dollars worth of customer funds from the FTX crypto exchange were gone. Bankman-Fried faces two counts of wire fraud and five counts of conspiracy tied to the operation and collapse of FTX and Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried’s trading firm.

“This is a pyramid of deceit by the defendant built on lies and false promises,” he said.

Roos asked the jury to keep three questions in mind as they review the evidence: where the money went, what happened and who was responsible, repeating these questions several times.

“Now that you’ve seen all the evidence and heard all testimonies, you know the answer,” Roos said, pointing to Bankman-Fried. “This man,” the prosecutor said. “The defendant is responsible.”

Bankman-Fried’s former employees quit when they learned about the missing money, and his fellow executives testified that they didn’t know customer funds were being misused until it was too late, Roos said.

“Their understanding was, customer funds were not allowed to be used by FTX or anyone else,” he said. “Customer funds belonged to customers.”

Roos pointed to witness testimony and Bankman-Fried’s own turn on the stand, saying the defendant morphed into a “different person” when answering the DOJ’s questions as opposed to defense attorney Mark Cohen’s.

“He came up with a tale,” Roos said, asking the jury if they noticed how during cross-examination, Bankman-Fried couldn’t remember details, whereas during the direct examination, he frequently described situations from his life. “You’d have to ignore the evidence to believe his story.”

Both the prosecution and the defense rested their respective cases between the end of last week and Tuesday. Closing arguments are expected to last through all of Wednesday, with the DOJ potentially presenting a rebuttal argument as well at the end of the day or on Thursday.

Court got off to a rough start Wednesday with a juror running late, followed by the session needing to be delayed due to technical issues with some of the monitors that display exhibits.

Bankman-Fried’s parents arrived at the Manhattan courthouse close to 9 a.m., but appear to have left the courtroom prior to Roos beginning his presentation.

Sam Kessler contributed reporting.