Sam Bankman-Fried laughed, scoffed, and visibly shook his head during Caroline Ellison’s second-day testimony, prosecutor tells judge

However Caroline Ellison—the previous CEO of crypto hedge fund Alameda Analysis, the prosecution’s star witness, and Bankman-Fried’s on-again off-again girlfriend—allegedly provoked essentially the most emotional response from the one-time golden boy of crypto on Wednesday afternoon.

In a sidebar not audible to the jury or the viewers within the courtroom, prosecutor Danielle Sassoon complained to Decide Lewis Kaplan, who’s presiding over the trial, that Bankman-Fried has “laughed, visibly shaken his head, and scoffed” throughout Ellison’s testimony after the lunch break on Wednesday. The previous FTX CEO’s reactions are usually not readily seen to members of the media, who occupy three benches at the back of the courtroom.

“I’m not speaking with the witness, but it surely’s attainable it’s having a visual impact on her, particularly given the historical past of this relationship, the prior makes an attempt to intimidate her, the ability dynamic, their romantic relationship,” Sassoon stated, in response to a transcript of the dialog, “and I’d ask that protection counsel inform him to regulate his seen reactions to her testimony.”

Mark Cohen, one in every of Bankman-Fried’s attorneys, took affront to Sassoon’s characterization of the FTX founder. “Your honor, that is ridiculous,” he stated. “The defendant is attending this trial. If he’s having any response in any respect, that’s in your honor and the jury to resolve.”

He later added that the notion that Bankman-Fried was attempting to intimidate Ellison, who awkwardly bobbed backwards and forwards at first of her testimony as she tried to find her former boyfriend and boss, was “ridiculous.”

The back-and-forth over Bankman-Fried’s alleged emotional reactions to his prior shut confidant got here amid one of the vital explosive days of testimony in one of the vital highly-covered white-collar legal instances in current reminiscence.

Bankman-Fried, as soon as hailed as a quantitative savant and one of many world’s youngest billionaires, isn’t identified for outright shows of emotion. “Smiling was the most important factor that I most weirdly couldn’t do,” he as soon as stated to Michael Lewis, writer of a just lately launched e-book concerning the former crypto mogul.  

In court docket on Wednesday, Bankman-Fried appeared to have pushed previous his standard temperament, in response to Sassoon. However Kaplan, the choose, hadn’t seen Bankman-Fried’s alleged reactions. “I settle for that you simply’re offended,” he stated to Cohen, “and I settle for that Ms. Sassoon has seen what she says she’s seen, or at the least thinks so.”

Kaplan later added: “If he’s doing something, it ought to cease; and if he’s not, then no hurt, no foul.”