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Sam Bankman-Fried doesn't recall

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Re: Sam Bankman-Fried doesn't recall

#11

Post by vkou »

dheera wrote: post #2

"don't recall" I'm guessing this is largely just an ass-covering strategy to avoid giving the opposing side an upper hand. If you say "yes" to anything you might give them verbal grounds to convict you of more than they can directly find and show external evidence for.

> I'm guessing this is largely just an ass-covering strategy to avoid giving the opposing side an upper hand. I

It is, but it looks really, really bad to the jury.

The government needs to convince the jury of a particular version of events, in order to convict you. If you plead the fifth, and just poke holes at that version of events, you might convince the jury that the government failed to meet the standard of conviction.

If you talk and talk, and spin your own version of events (thus giving the prosecution an opportunity to poke holes in it, and show you a liar), but as soon as you're asked about something damaging to you, you clam up, it's not exactly a ringing endorsement of your innocence.

In his case, his guilt is a foregone conclusion, we have him dead to rights. His best bet is just fishing for sympathy to turn a life-time sentence into a 25-year one. His parents' best bet is to have the money that they stole from FTX not get clawed back from them.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried doesn't recall

#13

Post by spiderice »

pphysch wrote: post #10

> Behind all the finance sheets and code bases, the fall of FTX was in a way incredibly childish: a nerd posse running away with a bunch of other people’s money in the stupidest and simplest way possible. And yet our bimodal justice system spends huge amount of resources giving this 31yo fraudster every possible chance to escape the consequences, simply because he is a member of the elite.

Probably because he's on trial..

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried doesn't recall

#14

Post by steveBK123 »

efitz wrote: post #8
dheera wrote: post #2

"don't recall" I'm guessing this is largely just an ass-covering strategy to avoid giving the opposing side an upper hand. If you say "yes" to anything you might give them verbal grounds to convict you of more than they can directly find and show external evidence for.

“I don’t remember” is still perjury if you can be reasonably expected to remember or if evidence can be provided that you remembered very recently.

SBF seems like the kind of big mouthed overconfidently stupid smart person to walk right into that. He certainly has a lot of content out there on the public record for them to cross check his recollections against!

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried doesn't recall

#15

Post by vkou »

steveBK123 wrote: post #7
fasthands9 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely - but it's still notable that he's doing this after voluntarily taking the stand.

Yes, not a lawyer so maybe theres some nuance here but.. I don't get taking the stand voluntarily to just say "I don't recall" endlessly? At some point does the judge tell you to GTFO and strike all your testimony? Can they instruct the jury in some manner harmful to you as a result of your obvious malign intent? Etc..

> Can they instruct the jury in some manner harmful to you as a result of your obvious malign intent? Etc..

The judge doesn't need to do anything, the jury should have no problem putting two and two together on their own.

Someone who makes up an elaborate story, but can't recall any of the details when cross-examined looks guilty as sin.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried doesn't recall

#17

Post by sieste »

fasthands9 wrote: post #5
dheera wrote: post #2

"don't recall" I'm guessing this is largely just an ass-covering strategy to avoid giving the opposing side an upper hand. If you say "yes" to anything you might give them verbal grounds to convict you of more than they can directly find and show external evidence for.

Definitely - but it's still notable that he's doing this after voluntarily taking the stand.

I really don't understand what the big deal is with "Do you remember saying 'these precise words'?" - "No, but it sounds like something I could have said." Given how human memory works, that should be the honest answer for everything anyone ever said more than 5 minutes ago. Why does the article turn this into a major gotcha?

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried doesn't recall

#18

Post by vecter »

efitz wrote: post #8
dheera wrote: post #2

"don't recall" I'm guessing this is largely just an ass-covering strategy to avoid giving the opposing side an upper hand. If you say "yes" to anything you might give them verbal grounds to convict you of more than they can directly find and show external evidence for.

“I don’t remember” is still perjury if you can be reasonably expected to remember or if evidence can be provided that you remembered very recently.

Interesting. How would someone prove this?

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried doesn't recall

#20

Post by H8crilA »

What is amazing is that nobody infiltrated their structure and ran off with the money. There are sophisticated criminal organisations out there that go to much, much more effort to obtain funding. Just to take Hezbollah since it's all over the news recently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funding_of_Hezbollah#Latin_Ame...
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