Sam Bankman-Fried Defense Identifies Financial Expert as Witness to Dismiss DOJ Testimony

The defense team assembled by former FTX chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried confirmed it would call financial experts to testify regarding the now-bankrupt FTX financials. The Bankman-Fried defense team anticipates tearing into the DOJ claims by leveraging the consultant’s account of Alameda Research financials.

The defense assembled by the embattled FTX boss identified Joseph Pimbley as the sole expert witness engaged in the criminal case. The FTX founder is counting on Pimbley’s account to dispute testimony by former subordinates at the crypto exchange giant. 

Bankman Fronts Financial Services Expert to Respond to Prosecutors’ Witnesses

Pimbley is a financial services expert and hailing from the PF2 consulting firm. His engagement targets responding to the assertions by former Alameda’s chief executive Caroline Ellison. Also, the consultant will facilitate the defense in deconstructing the testimony by developer Adam Yedidia and former chief technology executive Gary Wang. 

The defense submitted on Monday, October 23, will leverage Pimbley’s account to respond to FTX engineering head Nishad Singh. 

The defense filed that Pimbley’s testimony opinion was founded upon the data extracted from the FTX database. The consultant will offer an account of Alameda Research’s usage of the credit line that fluctuated within the $1- $3B starting October 2021 and September 2022.

Pimbley is expected to demonstrate that Alameda’s line usage decreased substantially in mid-2022. The court filing shows the witness will offer data-backed testimony to counter the FTX financial ties. The witness will illustrate that balances linked to nonAlameda and belonging to non-FTX users are majorly in four tokens, namely USD, Ethereum (ETH), Tether’s stablecoin (USDT and Bitcoin (BTC), despite the existence of hundreds of coins within the FTX database. 

The filing showed that Pimbley will testify that over three-quarters of non-Alameda and non-FTX balances belong to accounts with spot margin and lending enabled or illustrating the futures activity. 

Expert Witness to Submit Data-backed Opinion on FTX and Alameda Financials

The disclosure statement featured Pimbley’s admission that the data extracted indicated the extent of FTX’s credit line that Alameda utilized. Also, the expert witness is scheduled to illustrate the balances held in the accounts relative to the crypto exchange database by Amazon Web Services. 

The defense indicates that the illustration would capture the cryptocurrencies where the balances are denominated. The disclosure captures database queries run and diagrams linked to the consultant’s work on the case. 

Pimbley is among the seven experts listed within the initial pitch by the Bankman-Fried’s defense as potential witnesses early in 2023. Judge Lewis Kaplan would reject their inclusion. The New York’s Southern District court judge would later allow the renomination of four prospective witnesses. Judge Kaplan emphasized that the witnesses should share more specific details of their intended testimony. 

Bankman-Fried Defense Team Permitted to Call Additional Witnesses

Judge Kaplan’s ruling indicates that while Pimbley is the sole expert witness identified by the Bankman-Fried defense, the team may have more. However, the additional witnesses could testify provided they prove to have a direct role and link with the FTX. The defense is yet to reveal the witnesses it would call besides Pimbley. Also, the counsel is noncommittal on whether Bankman-Fried will testify.

The prosecutors in the former FTX boss informed the court of their desire to break following the trial resumption on October 26. They informed the court of plans to call two additional witnesses, a customer, and an investor, in the collapsed FTX. The prosecutors submitted that the combined testimonies would take less than an hour.

The Justice Department indicated the possibility of a third witness identified as a law enforcement official. However, it noted that it hoped that the testimony was unnecessary. The defense is yet to confirm whether it would present a case. In the event it does, such would start Thursday afternoon. 

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