Day 11 Highlights in Sam Bankman-Fried’s Trial

FTX’s financial dealings took center stage on the eleventh day of founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial. Witnesses were called forth, with testimony focusing on how FTX utilized its customer funds.

Professor Peter D. Easton, an authority in accountancy from Notre Dame, detailed his analysis. Contracted by Brattle, a litigation support firm, Easton studied the money flow between FTX and Alameda Research. He disclosed, “47 Alameda accounts received money from FTX customer accounts.” Additionally, several transactions by Bankman-Fried directly came from FTX’s user funds. Some noteworthy investments were into Anthony Scaramucci’s Skybridge Capital and Dave Inc., an Alameda venture.

The trail of fund utilization didn’t end there. Nishad Singh, another name in the case, reportedly channeled $1 million of customer money into the political committee MTG (Mind The Gap). Furthermore, Singh was allocated a whopping $96 million for property-related costs and investments.

Another significant revelation was FTX’s use of over $1 billion in customer resources to repurchase shares from Binance. Not just that, several loans to firms such as Celsius, Maple, Abra, Anchorage, Bitgo, and TrueFi were made from these customer deposits.

Shifting the lens to another witness, Investigator Chanel Medrano from the US Attorney’s Office shared details about NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal acquiring Binance’s stake in FTX. Moreover, Bankman-Fried was quoted informing Frank Chaparro, Business Insider’s finance journalist, of his decision to “stop lobbying.”

The prosecutor’s list of witnesses also named Cory Gaddis, associated with Google. Gaddis’s testimony was limited, confirming that Bankman-Fried maintained several email accounts across various domains.