Sam Bankman-Fried Will Take the Stand in His Own Defense

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried will testify in his criminal trial, directly appealing to jurors in his bid to prove he did not commit fraud or conspire to commit fraud at his once-giant cryptocurrency exchange FTX, his defense attorneys said during a Wednesday teleconference.

The move comes as his defense team prepares to begin calling witnesses after prosecutors spent three weeks laying out their argument that Bankman-Fried defrauded FTX’s customers and Alameda Research’s investors, and conspired with his fellow executives to hide his crimes and continue misusing those funds.

Those executives, including Caroline Ellison, Nishad Singh and Gary Wang, testified against him after pleading guilty to various crimes of their own, with the defense mostly mounting seemingly unimpressive cross-examinations in their bid to sow doubt about the strength of the witnesses’ testimony.

Now, Bankman-Fried is going to describe his version of events to the 12 jurors and six alternates who will be asked to decide if he’s guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The defense team also intends to call PF2 Securities member Joseph Pimbley to testify in Bankman-Fried’s favor.

While the U.S. Department of Justice must prove that Bankman-Fried actually met the statutory requirements of the different crimes he’s accused of beyond a reasonable doubt, the defense only has to prove Bankman-Fried not guilty to that standard.