Transcript Ep.558 : Another Bad Week for Sam Bankman-Fried in His Criminal Trial

Sam Bankman-Fried is facing an even more difficult task in proving his innocence after this week’s compelling testimony by the last member of his inner circle.

San Enzer:

I would agree with your assessment that this is not going well for SBF. The evidence is utterly overwhelming. I don't think there has been a cohesive theme or narrative to the defense. It is hard for the defense sometimes to have a theme when they are basically only have cross-examination.

Laura Shin:

Hi everyone, welcome to Unchained, your no-hype resource for all things crypto. I'm your host, Laura Shin, author of The Cryptopians. I started covering crypto eight years ago and as a senior editor at Forbes, was the first mainstream media reporter to cover cryptocurrency full-time. This is the October 20th, 2023 episode of Unchained.

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Today's guest is Sam Enzer, partner at Cahill Gordon & Reindel. Welcome Sam.

San Enzer:

Thanks for having me again, Laura. It's a pleasure to be back.

Laura Shin:

For frequent listeners of Unchained, you will know that Sam has repeatedly come on the show to discuss the SBF trial, and he's here to discuss the events of this particular week. Sam, I'll have to say, at this point, from my experience in the courtroom, I continue to feel that the prosecution is winning in a pretty overwhelming way. This week we had Nishad Singh, the Head of Engineering. We also had some technical and legal experts, including the general counsel of FTX. And you and I had previously talked about how, at least last week, after the end of the second week, it wasn't totally clear what the defense's strategy was. And I wondered if now, after this third week, if you're seeing anything useful that they can use in their closing or just your read on how the trial's going for both sides.

San Enzer: