Sam Bankman-Fried Gambled by Testifying and Lost

Sam Bankman-Fried, the former head of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was found guilty of all seven criminal charges against him including securities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. The New York federal jury reached its verdict after just five hours of deliberations, in a trial that lasted over four weeks. Perhaps the turning point in the trial came when Mr. Bankman-Fried testified in his own defense. This is something that most white-collar criminal defendants generally don’t do because it is fraught with risk. Mr. Bankman-Fried faced withering cross examination from a veteran federal prosecutor, who often used his own public statements to impeach him. In the end, his gravitas was not enough to persuade the jury in his favor, and he now faces a potential sentence of decades in prison.