Bankman-Fried Desires 2nd Crack at ‘Bad Authorized Advice’ Protection

Sam Bankman-Fried desires a further shot at mounting a “bad lawful counsel” protection.

In a submitting Monday (Oct. 9) night, attorneys for the former FTX head have questioned the court’s authorization to concern firm co-founder Gary Wang about authorized tips he gained when agreeing to financial loans from Alameda Study, FTX’s sister enterprise.

As PYMNTS has noted, Judge Lewis Kaplan has already blocked Bankman-Fried from introducing evidence in guidance of an “advice of counsel defense” at his demo, which starts its second 7 days on Tuesday (Oct. 10).

“Bankman-Fried and his lawyers experienced been hoping to argue that the involvement of FTX’s possess lawyers in several of the matters less than scrutiny belies the capacity of the FTX CEO to have acted with criminal intent,” that report said.

In the courtroom filing, the lawyers argue that the prosecution has presently gotten Wang to testify about the $200 million to $300 million of financial loans from Alameda, which he made use of for enterprise investments and buy of a home in the Bahamas.

Wang had advised the FBI he “didn’t imagine the lawyers would inform him to indicator some thing that was illegal,” the submitting stated.

“Mr. Wang’s knowing of the lawyers’ involvement in the loans is straight appropriate to Mr. Bankman-Fried’s great faith and absence of felony intent,” defense attorneys wrote.

“Mr. Wang’s knowledge that these had been actual financial loans — structured by lawyers and memorialized in formal promissory notes that imposed authentic curiosity payment obligations — is relevant to rebut the inference that these ended up simply just sham financial loans directed by Mr. Bankman-Fried to conceal the source of the cash.”

Wang, FTX’s former main technology officer, is a person of three former higher-level FTX executives who have pleaded guilty to their role in the exchange’s collapse and have agreed to cooperate in the prosecution of what the government has known as “one of the biggest economic frauds in American history.”

In court docket past 7 days, Wang testified about what he explained were being bogus assurances from Bankman-Fried to FTX customers and buyers that the trade was a harmless buying and selling platform with advanced possibility mitigation measures to safeguard consumer belongings.

And despite the fact that he was allegedly aware of the multi-billion-dollar deficit at Alameda Study and FTX, Bankman-Fried continuously explained to shoppers and investors that “FTX was fantastic.”

“FTX was not fantastic,” Wang informed the jury, “because FTX did not have ample property for purchaser withdrawals.”