- According to Sam-Bankman-Fried’s attorneys, the government has yet to produce 3.6 million documents.
The FTX collapse has started a chain of events that unfold something new every day. In a recent episode, the former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried accused prosecutors of missing the discovery deadlines. According to him, personnel were supposed to find key pieces of evidence to prove innocence in fraud charges.
Attorneys blaming the government for delays
Bankman-Fried’s lawyers claimed that the government had not put forth all the electronic devices required. They said that the litigant had to produce the content of those devices by the end of March. They informed the United States District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in a letter on June 5.
Among the devices, there was a laptop belonging to the FTX co-founder Gary Wang and another laptop along with an iPhone belonging to former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison.
As per the attorneys of Bankman-Fried, the late submission of such valuable and voluminous evidence will hamper the whole process. They expressed concerns about their late preparation as the trial date is less than four months away now.
The former CEO has been accused of a litany of fraud charges that include bribing the Chinese government and illegal political donations. He is due to be produced before on Oct 2 and does not want to delay the hearing. The letter sent to the judge says that the team is considering filing additional motions. However, that would be possible only if the evidence supports them.
Furthermore, the letter points to the failure of the government to give information about the FTX debtors. The paucity of evidence will impact the defense’s ability to properly prepare for trial, it said. Moreover, the shreds of evidence make up a total of 10 million pages and 3.6 million documents according to Bank-Friedman’s attorneys.
Going further, the letter discloses that out of these 5 pieces of evidence, the 4 contain 1.1 million documents and the remaining has a little lesser than 2.5 million documents. These documents were received by the defense on May 25 and triple the weightage of the documents.
Foray into AI stocks
In the meantime, the FTX bankers are encumbered with seemingly a more painstaking task. Reportedly, they are encashing shares invested in another company that’s being dubbed as a frontrunner in the artificial intelligence bandwagon.
Semafor, a prominent news platform reported a lateral move taken by an investment banking firm on retainer to the bankrupt exchange. According to it, Perella Weinberg has been touting investors for shares worth multi-million dollars. It is promoting an AI startup keen to find funds.
Based on the balance sheets of FTX, the company held anthropic stocks worth $500 million at the time of bankruptcy. And today, the value of those shares is much more than it was back in May 2022.
From an investment perspective, Anthropic did really well in its series C funding round. Held on May 23, its reported valuation was $4.6 billion.
Conclusion
Sam Bankman-Fried’s lawyers expressed their disappointment with the government to the judge. Many people are curious to know how the proceedings will pan out. The former CEO has a team of experts that’s trying its best to get him exonerated. But as the whole process is taking time, we have no option but to wait and watch.
