Who’s who at FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial

As FTX spiralled in direction of chapter in early November 2022, the inside circle across the crypto trade’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, started to fracture.

Caroline Ellison, chief govt of FTX’s sister agency Alameda Analysis, was in Hong Kong and expressed reduction that she would quickly be launched from the strain cooker of the agency’s monetary misery. Colleagues at FTX’s headquarters within the Bahamas grew involved about head of engineering Nishad Singh’s psychological well being, as the total scale of the losses, and certain penalties, got here into focus.

Gary Wang, Bankman-Fried’s co-founder and high lieutenant, remained stoic by means of the slide to chapter. He lastly left the penthouse that he shared with Bankman-Fried and different high FTX executives shortly after consulting with US attorneys. Wang, Ellison and Singh have all since pleaded responsible.

The quartet of one-time pals and previously fabulously rich millennials are set to be reunited for the primary time in a Manhattan courtroom over the approaching weeks, as Bankman-Fried goes on trial for fraud. Listed below are a number of the central figures in essentially the most high-profile trial within the brief historical past of cryptocurrencies.

The defendant

Sam Bankman-Fried

Sam Bankman-Fried grew up on the perimeter of the Stanford College campus, the son of two respected legal scholars. He loathed college, discovering it boring, however thrived in aggressive maths after which at Massachusetts Institute of Expertise the place he studied physics. He additionally fell in with followers of the philosophical motion Efficient Altruism, who preach philanthropy based mostly on a mathematical evaluation of the best good for the best quantity.

Bankman-Fried, now 31, touted charitable causes as he based two companies: personal crypto buying and selling agency Alameda in 2017, after which a public-facing crypto buying and selling platform, FTX, in 2019. The success of FTX, which was backed by a number of the world’s high buyers, made him a billionaire and propelled him to worldwide fame.

However after crypto costs collapsed in 2022 and a leak of Alameda’s stability sheet led to a run on FTX, Bankman-Fried yielded to strain to place FTX in chapter — a call he says he regrets. He has defied expectation that he would plead responsible in hopes of a lowered punishment, and has repeatedly sought to get his facet of the story mirrored within the press whereas awaiting trial. He maintains FTX collapsed due to good-faith errors. Earlier than his arrest, he ready testimony for a congressional committee which started: “I wish to begin by formally stating, below oath: I fucked up.”

The star witness

Caroline Ellison

Caroline Ellison, 28, and Bankman-Fried grew up alongside parallel tracks. Ellison, a baby of lecturers at MIT, additionally competed in highschool maths contests after which moved to California to review at Stanford. Their paths crossed as merchants at Jane Avenue. Shortly after Bankman-Fried give up the buying and selling agency, Ellison adopted him again to California to affix Alameda.

The pair turned romantically concerned, though the character of their relationship was unclear. The non-public turbulence meant that, at occasions, they barely spoke.

Nonetheless, Ellison was trusted with main Alameda after Bankman-Fried formally stepped apart to give attention to FTX, taking part in an vital function in lending relationships that at the moment are the main target of fraud costs. She and Wang pleaded responsible to fraud final December and agreed to co-operate with prosecutors — a reality publicised in a dramatic late-night press convention as soon as Bankman-Fried had agreed to be extradited from the Bahamas and was on a aircraft to New York.

As FTX was collapsing in late 2022, she wrote to Bankman-Fried: “I simply had an rising dread of at the present time that was weighing on me . . . Now that it’s really occurring it simply feels nice to get it over with.”

The loyal lieutenant

Gary Wang

Gary Wang was, till late final 12 months, Bankman-Fried’s stoic right-hand man. The co-founder and chief know-how officer of FTX had nearly no public profile. Colleagues describe barely exchanging a phrase with him. However he constructed and maintained a lot of the crypto trade’s tech, whereas apparently trusting his outdated pal Bankman-Fried to run the enterprise.

The 2 met at Canada-USA Math Camp, a summer season programme for highschool college students. Each attended MIT. They joined the identical co-ed fraternity, Epsilon Theta, the place members indulged not in raucous events however in marathon classes taking part in technique board video games and lengthy moral debates. Wang left a job at Google to assist begin Alameda.

Prosecutors declare his central function in constructing FTX included inserting secret parameters into the trade’s code that gave Alameda the best to borrow $65bn — many occasions extra money than the trade ever held. Wang pleaded responsible to fraud, telling the court docket that he made adjustments to FTX’s code “realizing that others had been representing to buyers and clients that Alameda had no such particular privileges and other people had been seemingly investing in and utilizing FTX based mostly partially on these misrepresentations”.

The whizz child

Nishad Singh

The youngest member of the inside circle at FTX, Nishad Singh studied on the similar elite California personal college as Bankman-Fried and his youthful brother Gabe. As a pupil, he as soon as ran a 100-mile race. After graduating from the College of California, Berkeley, he took a “dream job” at Fb however spent evenings and weekends at Alameda’s workplace pitching in on Bankman-Fried’s crypto venture.

He joined full-time and have become the number-two engineer to Wang. Colleagues keep in mind an lively and personable younger man, whose sunny perspective complemented Wang, the solitary genius. Singh’s pet labradoodle turned an organization favorite.

He pleaded responsible to fraud and marketing campaign finance violations. “Your Honour, I’m unbelievably sorry for my function in all of this and the hurt that it’s brought about. I’m hoping that in accepting duty, helping the federal government, and forfeiting property, I can start to make it proper,” he stated on the time.

The choose

Lewis Kaplan

A veteran of the Southern District of New York, Lewis Kaplan has been a federal choose since he was appointed to the court docket by president Invoice Clinton in 1994. He has presided over quite a few high-profile instances, together with the primary occasion by which a Guantánamo Bay detainee was tried in a non-military court docket. Most just lately, he oversaw a civil case by which the journalist E Jean Carroll efficiently sued former president Donald Trump for rape, profitable a $5mn payout.

“He’s thought to be a really powerful, no-nonsense choose, however very sensible. He’s not by any means an ideologue,” stated Bradley Simon, a prison defence accomplice at Schlam Stone & Dolan. He added that Kaplan — who will typically congratulate attorneys if he finds their arguments spectacular, and who has a penchant for self-deprecating jokes — “doesn’t endure fools gladly”.

Kaplan has up to now largely sided with the federal government on pre-trial motions, and has sometimes expressed his exasperation with Bankman-Fried over his bail situations. He has additionally repeatedly refused functions from attorneys for Bankman-Fried, who had his bail revoked in August, to quickly go away jail to be able to higher put together for his trial.

The defence attorneys

Mark Cohen and Christian Everdell

Bankman-Fried has two formidable former federal prosecutors in his nook. Mark Cohen began his personal agency greater than 20 years in the past and has defended Jeffrey Epstein affiliate Ghislaine Maxwell, amongst others. A former colleague calls him “one of the crucial revered attorneys” within the white-collar bar, famend for his command of the legislation in addition to his cautious and thought of arguments.

His co-counsel Christian Everdell, who additionally labored on the Maxwell case, was a part of the workforce who introduced down the Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera earlier than getting into personal observe.

Whereas each have steadfastly fought Bankman-Fried’s nook, Cohen has hinted at a divergence of opinion between him and his shopper over one of the simplest ways to organize a defence. When hauled in entrance of Kaplan in July after prosecutors accused Bankman-Fried of trying to intimidate witnesses by leaking communications along with his former colleague Ellison to The New York Instances, Cohen conceded that his shopper’s actions “could or might not be the most effective technique” however that he “had the best” to “shield his fame”.

Cohen and Everdell could must deal with Bankman-Fried taking the stand in his personal defence — a transfer attorneys are likely to advise in opposition to.

The prosecutors

Nick Roos and Danielle Sassoon

The prosecution workforce within the case in opposition to Bankman-Fried has at numerous factors included as many as eight totally different assistant US attorneys, however many of the key briefs and arguments have been spearheaded by Nick Roos, who co-led the workforce that received the conviction of Nikola Motors founder Trevor Milton, and Danielle Sassoon, a rising star in an workplace that brings a number of the greatest prison instances within the nation.

After a swift indictment of Bankman-Fried, Roos and Sassoon have needed to deal with some bumps within the highway, together with repeated tightening of the defendant’s bail situations. Additionally they bumped into an sudden problem from the Bahamas, which prompt it might object to a marketing campaign finance violation cost introduced in opposition to Bankman-Fried after it had agreed to extradite him to the US. That cost was dropped, whereas 5 others, together with the alleged bribery of a international official, had been severed for a separate trial in March.

The federal government has not revealed who it can put up for opening and shutting arguments, or who will look at star witnesses. However Roos, who has developed a fame for tackling financially complicated subjects, and Sassoon, who as soon as clerked for Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court docket, may very well be tasked with simplifying the crypto universe for the jury by specializing in Bankman-Fried’s alleged fraud, somewhat than the nuances of distributed ledgers.