Cryptocurrency

SBF’s lawyer says the FTX cofounder ‘may be at the very top of the list as the worst person I’ve ever seen do a cross examination’

• Sam Bankman-Fried’s defense seemed like an uphill climb from the start. Even his lawyer agrees.
• David Mills told Bloomberg the FTX cofounder’s case was “almost impossible to win.”
• “He may be at the very top of the list as the worst person I’ve ever seen do a cross examination,” Mills added.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s attorneys sure had their work cut out for them, and one of them is saying so loud and clear.

Stanford Law School professor David Mills represented the 31-year-old FTX cofounder as a favor to Bankman-Fried’s parents, who are Mills’ close friends and colleagues at Stanford.

In a Bloomberg interview published Tuesday, Mills reflected on his client’s disastrous testimony on the stand. SBF was convicted on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy last month. Prosecutors alleged that Bankman-Fried orchestrated a scheme at the now-defunct crypto exchange FTX to defraud customers and investors of billions of dollars by quietly diverting FTX customers’ funds to his crypto trading firm, Alameda Research.

“He may be at the very top of the list as the worst person I’ve ever seen do a cross examination,” Mills told Bloomberg.

While being cross-examined, Bankman-Fried frequently gave meandering answers, apologizing 11 times for his rambles and frustrating the judge, who instructed him to “listen to the question and answer the question directly,” and at one point SBF used a mocking voice to take a dig at the prosecution.

Bankman-Fried’s defense was dealt another blow by the testimony of three other influential figures in the FTX saga, Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, FTX cofounder Gary Wang, and FTX engineering director Nishad Singh. The three, all witnesses for the prosecution, testified that SBF was the mastermind of the scheme.

“I thought it was almost impossible to win a case when three or four founders are all saying you did it,” Mills told Bloomberg. “Even if they’re all lying through their teeth, it’s really, really hard to win a case like that.”

Mills added that he initially struggled to find lawyers willing to represent Bankman-Fried, describing his client as “the most hated person on earth but not Donald Trump.” Most people took that to mean he was representing SBF, per Bloomberg.

Bankman-Fried’s sentencing date is set for March 28, 2024. He faces a maximum sentence of 115 years.