US prosecutors requested restrictions on Sam Bankman-Fried trial
Prosecutors asked judges to prohibit the legal team from presenting evidence of recovery of assets from FTX clients
US prosecutors asked the court presiding over Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial to prohibit his legal team from presenting any arguments related to the possible recovery of FTX clients’ assets invested in Anthropic.
In April 2022, Bankman-Fried invested $500 million in the artificial intelligence startup. However, the US government is preparing to present evidence alleging that said investment was made with misappropriated funds from FTX customer deposits.
Recently, Anthropic has been in the spotlight as it seeks new investment funds, courting giants like Amazon and Google, which could lead to an estimated valuation of between $20 billion and $30 billion.
US prosecutors argue that recent reports about Anthropic’s high valuation could increase the value of Bankman-Fried’s investment, potentially making it easier to recover funds for FTX clients and other creditors in the event of a potential FTX bankruptcy.
In a letter submitted to Judge Lewis Kaplan, the US government and Bankman-Fried’s legal teams reached agreements on various issues related to the questioning of witnesses.
Bankman-Fried’s legal team intends to present evidence on the current value of its $500 million investment in Anthropic in 2022.
Prosecutors maintain that this evidence seeks to support an argument that the court found “inadmissible”: “Such evidence would therefore be totally irrelevant and would present a substantial risk of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, misleading the jury, unnecessary delays and loss of time.”
The government argues that the allegations against Bankman-Fried center on wire fraud, using FTX customer deposits for investments and miscellaneous expenses. According to prosecutors, any mention of profitable investments is ultimately immaterial and irrelevant to the charges the jury is considering.
The government also states that while it plans to present evidence of Bankman-Fried’s alleged misappropriation of customer deposits, which resulted in significant losses on FTX’s balance sheet, it does not intend to offer evidence related to the losses. ends of the victims once the FTX bankruptcy process is concluded.
K. Tovar
Source: Cointelegraph
(Reference image source: Unsplash+)
Visit our news channel on Google News and follow us to get accurate, interesting information and stay up to date with everything. You can also see our daily content on Twitter and Instagram
