| Bankman-Fried
Taps on Air
Gap Laptop
Amid Cocoa Boy
and Beanbag
Crypto Creep
Redux
by
Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book
Substack
LITERARY SDNY,
Oct 4 -- Fourth day of
October and the SBF trial
started for real. There was
the open mic session of the
fifty jurors, which Kurt
Wheelock as in Ghislaine
Maxwell and Carroll v Trump
live-tweeted down to the last
detail - except now, perhaps
gun shy, not including all
names. That, he would
not make publicly available.
But it would be
available...
Pharma Bro
Martin Shkreli, shameless or
maybe simply a sign of the
times, was putting jury
analysis on a subscription
only X page. It was beginning
to mirror the Trump circus
down the
street.
After the 12 and
6 names were announced by
courtroom deputy Andy - a
drawing of whom by Kurt's
courtroom artist friend he had
uploaded - and Kurt had also
uploaded them, there were the
opening arguments.
US Attorney
Damian Williams was in the
front row; he had chosen blond
Thane Rehn to deliver it.
Thane hammered away, about
billions of dollars stolen,
from thousands of
victims.
Mark
Cohen's opening did not really
catch fire. It had been
reasonable, he said. It was
like trying to build a plane
while flying. Caroline Ellison
had refused Sam's urging to
implement hedging at Alameda.
Cohen did not explain hedging
to the jury, which included it
now emerged a man who worked
the night shift. Six weeks of
no sleep. Kurt could
relate.
The first
witness, Kurt could not
relate. Could the jury? The
guy, Marc-Antoine Julliard,
was a French cocoa trader who
lived in London and lost
$100,000 when FTX stopped
returning what was in
accounts. Kurt thought, What
about the Indian victim he'd
heard on a podcast, who'd lost
his whole $13,000 life
savings?
Cocoa boy
seemed like he'd be OK. Cocoa
boy and Pharma Bro. What a
trial.
Sam sat
typing on his air-gapped
laptop; his parents whispered
when the Larry David ad was
shown to the jury, with Big
Papa "Tax Lawyer" Bankman's
cameo.
Next, and
last for the day, was Sam's
"friend" Adam Yedidia. They'd
met at MIT, Sam had later
hired him, and put him up in
the $35 million condo in the
Bahamas.
AUSA Sassoon made
a point of asking, did you go
work for FTX because of that
apartment? No, was the answer.
The point was that Sam,
through Michael Lewis and soon
Mark Cohen, was arguing that
the lavish spending hadn't
been for Sam himself - it was
to attract talent like
Yedidia. Yedidia who now had
an immunity
deal...
During one break,
Kurt made it to the
Magistrates court for the
presentment of the fourth
defendant in the Bronx
fentanyl daycare case. The
defendant, Herrera Garcia, was
in the yellow jumpsuit of
Essex (NJ) DOC. He consented
to detention. Who should get
more time, him or Pharma Bro?
Him or SBF.
Meanwhile, a man
from Trinidad named Collymore
was re-sentenced to 35 years
(down from 520 months) for
killing a marijuana dealer
during a robbery in 2016.
Collymore hadn't been able to
read....
#EndlessSentences
More on SBF on
Substack here
More book sample
on Substack here.
Extended on Patreon here.
Book here
***
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