Cocoa bean trader who lost $100,000 to FTX was initial witness in Sam Bankman-Fried trial

Marc-Antoine Julliard usually trades cocoa beans. But in the spring of 2021, the London-centered commodities broker decided to diversify into cryptocurrency investing. His platform of decision was FTX.

Two several years later, Julliard stood as the prosecution’s very first witness in the criminal fraud trial against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who’s accused of misusing billions of dollars in customer funds.

In testimony that lasted all-around 50 minutes on Wednesday, Julliard recounted his encounter with FTX, such as the “really nervous” emotion he had the working day he unsuccessfully tried to withdraw aspect of the $100,000 value of crypto and money he had saved on the site. He and thousands of other FTX consumers were being basically wiped out when the exchange went belly up late final yr.

Like lots of other folks, Julliard said he he was underneath the impression that there ended up “solid financials guiding the company.”

Julliard is the poster little one for the case the prosecution laid out in its opening assertion as it tries to verify to a jury that customers have been led to believe the money they stored with FTX was safe. Future shoppers, Julliard said, ended up drawn in via savvy advertising and marketing, with no cause to believe that that FTX would be repurposing their crypto cash.

In a demo that is established to previous six weeks, Bankman-Fried, a gentleman after revered as the “white knight” of crypto, faces seven federal rates, including wire fraud, securities fraud and dollars laundering, that could put him in jail for the rest of his lifestyle.

A jury was seated shortly immediately after 11:30 a.m. (even though 4 of the 12 jurors ended up now seeking to be dismissed). Opening statements began about an hour later. Julliard took the stand just before 2 p.m. to a packed courthouse in Manhattan.

As the guide witness, Julliard served lay out the government’s narrative. A lot of his determination to invest in into FTX had to do with the stars and enterprise money attached to the brand name. He referenced an advert with supermodel Gisele Bündchen and Components 1 advertising. He also pointed to prolific media coverage, which bolstered his have faith in in the organization.

Julliard wasn’t an aggressive crypto trader. He stated he under no circumstances participated in margin investing, or borrowing dollars to make buys, nor did he have interaction in a lending program provided by the business that authorized buyers to receive interest on idle crypto.

The protection is making an attempt to make purchasers accountable for what it states had been their alternatives to purchase and trade crypto.

“Sam didn’t defraud everyone,” stated Mark Cohen, Bankman-Fried’s attorney, in his opening statement. Cohen termed it a “hindsight case” introduced by the governing administration, and stated that just for the reason that people today misplaced income, will not indicate the 31-year-outdated Bankman-Fried committed fraud. 

Bankman-Fried donned a contemporary fit with a purple tie and a clean up haircut — a a lot various glance than the beach shorts, sandals and wild curls that helped determine his image for the duration of crypto’s heyday. The entrepreneur, who Cohen described as a “math nerd that didn’t drink or occasion,” diligently took notes on his air-gapped laptop as he conversed with both of those of his attorneys and, for the duration of breaks, at times stood whilst emphatically motioning with his fingers as he spoke to his counsel.

All over each sides’ opening statements, Bankman-Fried held his eyes qualified on the jury box. His head was turned 90 degrees to his correct to observe those who will in the long run choose his fate. Bankman-Fried was joined in court by his mother and father, who are both of those becoming sued by FTX’s new administration for owning allegedly “exploited their access and impact inside of the FTX business to enrich themselves…by millions of dollars.”

Cohen is projecting Bankman-Fried as a startup founder and equated working FTX and Alameda Study, his sister hedge fund, to “building a plane whilst flying on it.” He advised the jury that there was no threat administration in place. Specifically, he explained the business didn’t have a chief danger officer.

Much from the “cartoon of a villain” that the governing administration presented, Cohen gave different explanations for his client’s supposedly unlawful actions. A single example dealt with the mystery backdoor baked into FTX’s code that prosecutors say gave Alameda a way to borrow much required money.

Cohen mentioned there was very little secretive about this backchannel in the code base and reported the exclusive access to FTX was there due to the fact Alameda was initially established up as a industry maker for the crypto trade, which needed the liquidity, particularly in its early days.

Cohen reminded the jury that the 3 insiders who will acquire the stand versus Bankman-Fried have all signed cooperation agreements with the authorities.

The prosecution’s opening assertion was shipped by Assistant U.S. Legal professional Thane Rehn. Around the program of about a fifty percent hour, Rehn drove dwelling the issue that day to day traders have been the kinds who fell sufferer to FTX’s scheme. By the summer time of 2022, he stated, extra than $10 billion experienced been stolen from hundreds of FTX customers who experienced trusted custody of their crypto and dollars to the platform.

Rehn mentioned the evidence would demonstrate jurors how Bankman-Fried lied to FTX people, investors and loan providers, and how he expended a excellent volume of the dollars he stole for his personal superior. Rehn referenced marketing campaign contributions, for case in point, as one particular way that Bankman-Fried seemed to curry favor on Capitol Hill.

Rehn referred to as Alameda a “next, smaller and much more secretive organization” launched and managed by Bankman-Fried that was integral to the defendant’s alleged plan.

The authorities also teed up its star witness, ex-girlfriend and Alameda’s ex-CEO, Caroline Ellison. She pleaded responsible in December to multiple fees and has been cooperating with the U.S. attorney’s business office in Manhattan for months.

Rehn ideas to display that Bankman-Fried set up his girlfriend at the top of his hedge fund, even though he remained the one particular calling the photographs guiding the scenes.

Noticeably absent was the point out of Ellison’s co-CEO Sam Trabucco, who was a classmate of Bankman-Fried at MIT. Trabucco left FTX in Aug. 2022, and has stayed somewhat underneath the radar.

Also central to the government’s situation is the alleged coverup to cover Bankman-Fried’s crimes. All those practices consist of backdating contracts and making use of encrypted messaging applications established to vehicle-delete to stay clear of a paper path.

“This man stole billions of dollars from countless numbers of men and women,” Rein mentioned, as he shut his statement.  

The prosecution’s 2nd witness was Adam Yedidia, who met Bankman-Fried in faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technologies. The pair remained very good buddies.

Yedida detailed his experience doing work very first as a trader at Alameda for two months in 2017, and later on as a computer software engineer for FTX starting in January 2021. He reported he resigned from FTX the day before the exchange submitted for individual bankruptcy immediately after a fellow developer instructed him that Alameda had applied FTX customer deposits to pay out back again collectors.

Speaking swiftly and intentionally with an air of practiced nonchalance, Yedida testified that he hadn’t talked to Bankman-Fried or witnessed him in individual due to the fact Nov. 2022.

When requested why he was showing under an immunity purchase, Yedida claimed he was anxious that as an FTX developer, he “may well have unwittingly penned code that contributed to a criminal offense.”

Prosecutors acquired by means of a 50 percent hour of testimony in advance of breaking for the day. The governing administration will keep on its questioning of Yedida at 9:30 A.M. on Thursday.

 FTX co-founder Gary Wang will also be using the stand this 7 days for the govt.

Check out: Sam Bankman-Fried prison trial begins in New York