{"id":88164,"date":"2023-12-12T17:46:59","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T15:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=88164"},"modified":"2025-09-13T16:19:31","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T13:19:31","slug":"sbf-lawyer-winning-the-case-was-almost-impossible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/sbf-lawyer-winning-the-case-was-almost-impossible\/","title":{"rendered":"SBF Lawyer: Winning the Case Was ‘Almost Impossible’"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Mills, head of the legal team for FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), said that the odds of winning the fraud trial were virtually zero. He told Bloomberg in an interview with Bloomberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWinning a case is almost impossible when three or four co-founders are accusing you. Even if they are all lying through their teeth, winning in such a case is really difficult,\u201d the lawyer explained.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Mills knew that Bankman-Fried would face at least three key witnesses: Alameda head Caroline Ellison<\/a>, FTX co-founder Gary Wang<\/a>, and the exchange’s head of engineering Nishad Singh<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to the lawyer, SBF \u201ctestified<\/a>\u201d before the jurors during the trial. However, he had no choice after statements by former colleagues, the defender acknowledged.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Mills described Bankman-Fried as \u201cthe worst person I have ever seen in cross-examination.\u201d During the proceedings, the former FTX chief unsuccessfully attempted to rebut several inculpatory statements, only convincing the jurors of his guilt, the lawyer noted.<\/p>\n

The lawyer also said that he agreed to defend Bankman-Fried at the request of his parents. Mills was likely a friend of Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried and worked pro bono.<\/p>\n

He added at the end of the interview that he would not take on cases involving close relatives again:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI am not going to emotionally involve myself in a similar case again, on such a deeply personal level.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

On November 2, SBF found guilty<\/a> on seven counts of money laundering, fraud and conspiracy, and faces a maximum sentence of 115 years in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for March 28, and his lawyers are expected to appeal.<\/p>\n

The founder of FTX was held in a Brooklyn, New York jail. According to WSJ, he was in<\/a> the same cell as former Honduran president Juan Hernandez and was giving the guards tips on cryptocurrency investments.<\/p>\n

In December, blogger Tiffany Fong gave an interview<\/a> to former mobster Gen Borrello, who was jailed alongside Bankman-Fried. He said that initially SBF was not in his element and was targeted for attacks because of his shy demeanor and \u201cthe body of an 80-year-old man.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Mills, head of the legal team for FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), said that the odds of winning the fraud trial were virtually zero.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":88165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1162,1236,1403],"class_list":["post-88164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-court-cases","tag-ftx","tag-sam-bankman-fried"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"10","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88166,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88164\/revisions\/88166"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}