Sam Bankman-Fried plans to lean on ‘counsel advice’ defense in criminal trial

2 years ago

FTX laminitis Sam Bankman-Fried intends to blasted “counsel advice” provided by the company’s interior ineligible squad and Fenwick & West, a salient Silicon Valley instrumentality firm, successful his lawsuit against the U.S. government.

In an Aug. 23 letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers wrote that their lawsuit received ineligible proposal from Fenwick successful making immoderate of his decisions, including utilizing auto-delete features and ephemeral messaging applications similar Signal. The lawyers besides pointed retired that the instrumentality steadfast provided ineligible proposal connected different issues, including the loans fixed to FTX and Alameda executives and intercompany payments betwixt FTX and Alameda.

According to the lawyers, Bankman-Fried was acting successful “good faith” arsenic Fenwick Lawyers and in-house counsel for FTX, including Dan Friedberg, Can Sun, Ryne Miller, and others, were progressive successful reviewing and approving decisions related to these matters and others. They added:

“Evidence of the defendant’s reliance connected counsel is applicable to the question of intent and is not constricted to situations wherever the defence tin found that the suspect formally sought retired the proposal of counsel, received ineligible advice, and followed the proposal given.”

Fenwick is simply a starring U.S. instrumentality steadfast focused connected the exertion and beingness sciences sectors. Some of the instrumentality firm’s large clients see Coinbase, OpenSea, and Meta.

Fenwick was yet to respond to CryptoSlate’s petition for remark arsenic of property time.

Meanwhile, the missive besides blamed the U.S. Department of Justice’s petition for much information, noting that the authorities had hindered the defence squad from getting due documents that would person aided its lawsuit from Fenwick.

The lawyers said:

“It is galling that the Government is requesting circumstantial documents from the defence erstwhile the Government helped guarantee that we could not get these precise documents.”

On Aug. 22, Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to ligament fraud and conspiracy charges, with his lawyers complaining astir the mediocre situation conditions. His proceedings is acceptable to statesman successful October.

The station Sam Bankman-Fried plans to thin connected ‘counsel advice’ defence successful transgression trial appeared archetypal connected CryptoSlate.

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