Sam Bankman-Fried's defense team may be rethinking its strategy of putting the former crypto king on the stand in his federal fraud trial.
He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of fraud and five counts of conspiracy tied to FTX's 2022 implosion. If convicted of all the charges against him, he could be sentenced to more than 100 years in prison. Some of the day's most heated exchanges came when Sassoon pressed Bankman-Fried on whether he knew that Alameda might not be able to pay back FTX customers. He said he wasn't aware in June 2022 that Alameda owed billions of dollars to FTX, directly contradicting Ellison's testimony, who said under oath that her former boyfriend and boss directed her to hide the debt owed to FTX from Alameda.
"I have no memory of that," he said, in what is a denial of the crux of the government's case against him.