Bankman-Fried's Attempts to Evade Responsibility After FTX Bankruptcy

V. The Defendant Tried to Deflect Blame and Evade Responsibility After FTX Declared Bankruptcy

The defendant’s fraud did not end with FTX’s declaration of bankruptcy. Rather, over the next month, and even after he had been arrested, the defendant disclaimed responsibility, blamed others, and tried to perpetuate his fraud further. For instance, Bankman-Fried told The Wall Street Journal on December 6, 2022, that FTX’s collapse was the result of a large “margin position” on FTX that “got hit a few times, and then got hit massively.” He gave a similar explanation to Forbes on December 13, 2022, and at the New York Times Dealbook event, which is cited in the defendant’s submission. (The evidence at trial proved, however, that the defendant’s fraud was unrelated to Alameda’s margin trading.) In an interview on Good Morning America, BankmanFried blamed the deficit in customer funds on FTX’s borrow/lending facility (GX-923B), despite an earlier conversation with FTX’s General Counsel, Can Sun, after FTX’s collapse that this was not an adequate or genuine explanation for the shortfall in FTX customer funds. (Tr. 1960-63, 1966 (“Q: And was the borrow-lend facility a potential justification that you had discussed with the defendant on November 7, 2022? A: Yes. Q: And what had you said to the defendant about that? A: It was not supported by the facts. Q: And what was his response? A: He acknowledged it.”)).

In interviews, Bankman-Fried also tried to distance himself from the misconduct by falsely claiming that he was not running Alameda, that he had not been involved at all in Alameda trading for years, and that he was walled off from Alameda trading decisions in 2022. (See, e.g., GX-2503, 2508, 2508-T). (He, of course, ultimately admitted otherwise on the stand in the face of irrefutable trial evidence.) (Tr. 2570-82). He also claimed that he did not “knowingly commingle funds” and that he was unaware of Alameda’s debts to FTX due to an “accounting mistake”—more lies in the aftermath of FTX’s collapse that were disproved at trial. On January 12, 2023, after he was indicted, the defendant posted a blog post on Substack called “FTX Pre-Mortem Overview” in which he claimed that “Alameda failed to sufficiently hedge,” there were losses in November 2022 when “an extreme, quick, targeted crash precipitated by the CEO of Binance made Alameda insolvent,” and “then Alameda’s contagion spread to FTX and other places.” (The evidence at trial proved this was not true: there was already a $14 billion deficit in customer funds before the “crash” in November 2022.) Bankman-Fried also lied about his intent, publicly claiming, “I did not ever try to commit fraud,” but the evidence overwhelmingly showed that he did intentionally take money that belonged to others and that he lied about it.