Sam Bankman-Fried scores rare victory in Singh cross-examination

Lead defense attorney Mark Cohen pressed Nishad Singh on his political donations — funds that originated from Alameda and were passed through his bank account

article-image

Artwork by Crystal Le

share

Sam Bankman-Fried may not currently be on trial for committing campaign finance fraud, but his defense team is certainly interested in the topic. 

The criminal trial of Bankman-Fried, where he faces seven counts of federal offenses, continued in Manhattan on Tuesday. Nishad Singh, a former family friend and employee, testified as a witness for the prosecution. Earlier this year, Singh pleaded guilty to six federal charges, including one relating to his role in a campaign finance scheme. 

Singh authorized Ryan Salame, former CEO of FTX, to access his bank account and make political donations, he testified on Monday. The donation funds came from Alameda, but were passed through Singh’s bank account, Singh said.

When the defense got the opportunity to challenge Singh’s narrative, Bankman-Fried’s team came on fairly strong. This marked a seemingly rare success in their cross examination.

Lead defense attorney Mark Cohen pressed Singh on the nature of the donations. He hinted that Singh was not as in the dark as the government had made it seen. Cohen pointed to Signal chats where Singh chimed in on the beneficiaries of his loans. 

“I preferred not to be giving to causes” that were too far “left,” Singh said on the stand Tuesday, explaining the Signal messages where he raised concern about donations being made in his name.  

Michael Sadowsky is a partner of Bankman-Fried’s brother, Gabriel Bankman-Fried, at the political action committee named Guarding Against Pandemics. He confirmed with Singh via Signal chat that he should think about what types of donations he would “comfortably” want to make.

Cohen also asked Singh about meetings he had with FTX’s director of finance, Caroline Papadopoulos. During these meetings, Singh asked for more information about the nature of the “loans” he had received from Alameda to make these political donations. 

Singh confirms that while he “intended to” and “wanted to” repay Alameda, the money used to make the donations was not formally a “loan.” 

Cohen adds that during one of his many meetings with prosecutors ahead of the trial, Singh told them he was “on the hook” for these loans, despite no formal agreement ever being made. 

Bankman-Fried’s jury trial started its third week on Monday. Prosecutors have told the court that they are slightly ahead of schedule, and expect to rest their case as soon as next week. Bankman-Fried’s defense has said they expect their case to take around a week. However, according to court filings the team is still determining whether Bankman-Fried himself will take the stand.


Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter.

Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Salt Lake City, UT

MON - TUES, OCT. 7 - 8, 2024

Blockworks and Bankless in collaboration with buidlbox are excited to announce the second installment of the Permissionless Hackathon – taking place October 7-8 in Salt Lake City, Utah. We’ve partnered with buidlbox to bring together the brightest minds in crypto for […]

Salt Lake City, UT

WED - FRI, OCTOBER 9 - 11, 2024

Permissionless is a conference for founders, application developers, and users. Come meet the next generation of people building and using crypto.

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Monad Report Graphic.png

Research

Monad represents an ambitious attempt to address the scalability challenges faced by existing EVM chains. By leveraging innovative consensus and execution mechanisms, including pipelined consensus-execution and optimistic parallel execution, Monad aims to achieve performance metrics of 10,000 TPS and 1-second finality while maintaining full EVM compatibility. This approach positions Monad as a potential evolution of the Ethereum ecosystem, offering enhanced scalability without sacrificing the familiar developer or user experience.

article-image

Gurbir Grewal, who has been at the agency almost as long as Gensler has been chair, will depart on Oct. 11, 2024

article-image

The stablecoin’s supply has declined about 50% in the last month, from $660 million to $320 million

article-image

Plus, Sky’s soaring stablecoin and simpler bitcoin staking

article-image

Bitwise took the initial steps for an XRP ETF Wednesday

article-image

Plus, enrollment for the Donald Trump-backed crypto project is underway