Literary: Bankman-Fried Taps on Air Gap Laptop Amid Cocoa Boy and Beanbag Crypto Creep Redux

More inside SBF trial here below the fold / paywall line

by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack

LITERARY SDNY, Oct 4 --  Fourth day of October and the SBF trial started for real. There was the open mic session of the fifty jurors, which Kurt Wheelock as in Ghislaine Maxwell and Carroll v Trump live-tweeted down to the last detail - except now, perhaps gun shy, not including all names.  That, he would not make publicly available. But it would be available... 

  Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli, shameless or maybe simply a sign of the times, was putting jury analysis on a subscription only X page. It was beginning to mirror the Trump circus down the street.   

After the 12 and 6 names were announced by courtroom deputy Andy - a drawing of whom by Kurt's courtroom artist friend he had uploaded - and Kurt had also uploaded them, there were the opening arguments. 

 US Attorney Damian Williams was in the front row; he had chosen blond Thane Rehn to deliver it. Thane hammered away, about billions of dollars stolen, from thousands of victims. 

 Mark Cohen's opening did not really catch fire. It had been reasonable, he said. It was like trying to build a plane while flying. Caroline Ellison had refused Sam's urging to implement hedging at Alameda. Cohen did not explain hedging to the jury, which included it now emerged a man who worked the night shift. Six weeks of no sleep. Kurt could relate. 

 The first witness, Kurt could not relate. Could the jury? The guy, Marc-Antoine Julliard, was a French cocoa trader who lived in London and lost $100,000 when FTX stopped returning what was in accounts. Kurt thought, What about the Indian victim he'd heard on a podcast, who'd lost his whole $13,000 life savings?

 Cocoa boy seemed like he'd be OK. Cocoa boy and Pharma Bro. What a trial. 

  Sam sat typing on his air-gapped laptop; his parents whispered when the Larry David ad was shown to the jury, with Big Papa "Tax Lawyer" Bankman's cameo.

  Next, and last for the day, was Sam's "friend" Adam Yedidia. They'd met at MIT, Sam had later hired him, and put him up in the $35 million condo in the Bahamas. 

AUSA Sassoon made a point of asking, did you go work for FTX because of that apartment? No, was the answer. The point was that Sam, through Michael Lewis and soon Mark Cohen, was arguing that the lavish spending hadn't been for Sam himself - it was to attract talent like Yedidia. Yedidia who now had an immunity deal...   

During one break, Kurt made it to the Magistrates court for the presentment of the fourth defendant in the Bronx fentanyl daycare case. The defendant, Herrera Garcia, was in the yellow jumpsuit of Essex (NJ) DOC. He consented to detention. Who should get more time, him or Pharma Bro? Him or SBF.

Meanwhile, a man from Trinidad named Collymore was re-sentenced to 35 years (down from 520 months) for killing a marijuana dealer during a robbery in 2016. Collymore hadn't been able to read.... #EndlessSentences 

More on SBF below the fold / paywall line here