The Mysterious Rival. The Law-Professor Parents. The Ex-Girlfriend CEO Turned Star Witness. Here’s Who’s Who at the SBF Trial.
This is part of Slate’s daily coverage of the intricacies and intrigues of the Sam Bankman-Fried trial, from the consequential to the absurd. Sign up for the Slatest to get our latest updates on the trial and the state of the tech industry—and the rest of the day’s top stories—and support our work when you join Slate Plus.
It’s here: the federal trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced former cryptocurrency magnate who is accused of defrauding customers of and investors in his crypto exchange FTX, which collapsed last year. Bankman-Fried undoubtedly makes for the most compelling character in this story—a quick-thinking former Wall Street quant, always clad in cargo shorts and a T-shirt, who amassed a multibillion-dollar fortune before the age of 30, purportedly for the sake of giving it away for the greater good. The short version of the SBF charges, according to the feds, is that the mogul inappropriately used FTX customer money to allow his crypto hedge fund Alameda Research (which was supposed to have been kept entirely separate from FTX) to make huge bets on in-house tokens his companies had created. Then, when less-than-promising revelations regarding Alameda and FTX finances surfaced in November, investors lost faith in those firms and attempted to yank out their money en masse—causing both companies to tank, and taking about $8 billion of customer funds with them. Along the way, SBF, his companies, his inner circle, and even his parents spent lavishly on marketing, real estate, and more.
It’s a lot of wreckage for one defendant—but there are a lot more (very colorful!) figures in this story, many of whom will appear throughout the proceedings of U.S. v. Samuel Bankman-Fried, the federal criminal trial that begins this week in Manhattan. (There will be a second trial in March 2024, covering additional charges that won’t be litigated this round.) Who was in Bankman-Fried’s inner circle? Who might testify against him? What does this have to do with Enron? I’ll tell you.
Company role: Founder of both FTX and Alameda Research
Charges: Seven counts encompassing wire fraud, securities fraud, commodities fraud, and money laundering
Trial role: The center of it all!
Best known as: The onetime crypto king whose shaggy clothes, powerful connections, and professed altruistic ideals earned him a brief but mighty period of influence in which his ventures touched everything from politics to journalism outfits to Super Bowl ads to the very future of international finance—before people realized he might just have been a fraud all along.
Other item of note: In the lead-up to this trial, SBF made things a lot worse for himself by attempting to discreetly contact former associates and leaking lots of legally prudent material to reporters, ultimately persuading his judge to move him from a cushy house-arrest deal to a period of detention in a particularly notorious Brooklyn jail.
Company role: Father of SBF and husband of Barbara Fried, early Alameda investor, pro bono counsel for Alameda and FTX, senior adviser at FTX.US, paid member of the FTX management team, other informal roles
Charges: N/A, though he’s been caught up in the ongoing FTX bankruptcy suit
Trial role: Likely to be mentioned by the prosecution as an enabler of his son’s rise (and subsequent fall) thanks to his significant contributions in getting high-profile figures interested in FTX, vouching for his son’s integrity, and guiding FTX’s business up through the bankruptcy
Best known as: A popular Stanford Law professor (though he’s not teaching at the school this year) who first came to prominence for helping effect tax reforms in California
Other items of note:
Company role: Mother of SBF and wife of Joseph Bankman, informal adviser to FTX executives, self-professed “point person” on her son’s “political investments”
Charges: N/A, although she’s caught up in the bankruptcy suit alongside her husband
Trial role: Likely to be mentioned by the prosecution as an enabler of her son’s rise (and subsequent fall) after receiving FTX funds for her super PAC, Mind the Gap, and her frequent encouragement of her son’s activities
Best known as: A popular Stanford Law professor, expert in legal ethics, scholar of effective altruism and utilitarianism, and proponent of a philosophy that emphasizes results over “abstract notions of right and wrong”
Other items of note:
Company role: SBF’s younger brother had no direct link to FTX or Alameda, but as with his mom’s political organization, Gabe’s nonprofit Guarding Against Pandemics received a loooooooot of FTX money, making up much of its budget.
Charges: N/A, though he’s been investigated regarding the straw-donor charges on which SBF will be tried next year
Trial role: Likely to be mentioned as a beneficiary of/collaborator with his brother’s schemes, especially those pertaining to their shared enthusiasm for effective altruism
Best known as: A dude who wanted to buy the island nation of Nauru so that he and his brother could carry out Dr. Moreau–style experiments in creating a superhuman race. (I’m not exaggerating.)
Other items of note:
Company role: Employee of Alameda Research from 2018–22, serving as co-CEO from 2021 through bankruptcy
Charges: Pleaded guilty in December to seven counts encompassing wire fraud, defrauding FTX and Alameda customers, as well as conspiracies to commit commodities fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering
Trial role: Likely star witness for the prosecution and general figure of intrigue, providing evidence including personal writings and testimony
Best known as: A blogger, including of a Tumblr in which she espoused the ideals of effective altruism, praised the wonders of Harry Potter, and dabbled in some race-science theories
Other items of note:
Company role: FTX co-founder and chief of technology, former Alameda employee
Charges: Pleaded guilty in December to wire fraud and three conspiracy counts of wire and securities fraud; also facing civil fraud charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Trial role: Likely witness for the prosecution
Best known as: The coding wiz who (as he’s likely to confess at trial) built the digital backdoor allowing Alameda and FTX to illegally commingle funds
Other items of note:
Company role: FTX co-founder and director of engineering, former Alameda employee
Charges: Pleaded guilty in February to charges of wire fraud, commodities fraud, securities fraud, money laundering, and campaign finance misdeeds; also facing civil charges from the SEC and CFTC
Trial role: Likely witness for the prosecution
Best known as: The guy who allegedly withdrew millions of dollars from Alameda and FTX to funnel toward various Democratic candidates and PACs—including, in part, through Barbara Fried’s Mind the Gap operation
Other items of note:
Company role: Former Alameda employee and co-CEO of FTX’s Bahamian subsidiary, known as FTX Digital Markets; heavy transmitter of dark-money Republican donations from FTX folks, with the beneficiaries including a Long Island congressman named George Santos
Charges: Pleaded guilty in September to campaign finance violations and operating an illegal money-transmitting business, forcing him to forfeit $1.5 billion to the feds. His sentencing will occur in March.
Trial role: Salame will not be taking the stand thanks to his preemptive insistence on pleading the Fifth—however, he has otherwise provided evidence for the prosecution, including internal messages with SBF and co.
Best known as: The hometown hero of Sandisfield, Massachusetts (population: 1,000), who bought $6 million worth of restaurants and commercial real estate there thanks to his FTX riches
Other items of note:
Company role: Former partner at law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, which advised FTX while Miller served as general counsel for FTX.US
Charges: N/A
Trial role: Likely witness for the prosecution
Best known as: The guy who received a Signal text from SBF that led the presiding judge to file a witness-tampering charge against the disgraced CEO
Other items of note: See more at the Sullivan & Cromwell entry below.
Company role: Joined Caroline Ellison as co-CEO of Alameda Research in 2021, before stepping down just three months prior to the big implosion
Charges: N/A
Trial role: Nothing official, though his name is likely to come up in connection with Alameda’s operations
Best known as: The guy who purchased a yacht named Soak My Deck
Other items of note:
Company role: CEO of FTX rival exchange Binance, early investor in FTX, and eventual knife-twister. His November 2022 tweets casting doubt on FTX’s business helped kick off the downward spiral that led us here.
Charges: Nothing in this trial, although he and his companies are separately facing 13 counts from the SEC for misleading investors and engaging in securities fraud
Trial role: Likely to be mentioned, frequently
Best known as: The guy who spurred FTX’s downfall, even though his own businesses are accused of their own sketchy practices
Other item of note: Binance has been having a time of it ever since the SEC charges landed in June—among other things, the fallout has cratered the exchange’s once-record-high trading volumes and caused it to exit countries like Russia.
Company role: N/A
Charges: N/A
Trial role: He’s a district judge for the Southern District of New York
Best known as: An aggressive jurist who’s presided over many high-profile cases, including the conviction of al-Qaida collaborator Ahmed Ghailani, the prosecution of 14 Gambino crime family members, Chevron’s vengeful lawsuit against attorney Steven Donziger, Virginia Giuffre’s suit against Prince Andrew, and E. Jean Carroll’s assault and defamation suits against Donald Trump
Other items of note:
Company role: Current CEO of FTX, having taken over the company after its bankruptcy filing in order to clean up the mess
Charges: N/A, though he’s filed quite a few of his own against former FTX employees
Trial role: Likely to be invoked by SBF’s defense as the guy who actually made things way worse for FTX than needed, because he took control of the firm from Sam, or something like that
Best known as: The guy who did all this for Enron back in the day
Other item of note: Ray infamously commented, in his first FTX court filing, “Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here”—implying that this whole mess is worse than Enron’s!
Company role: This one’s a doozy. The celebrated law firm advised FTX and Alameda on several matters—brought into the gig by its former partner, FTX.US general counsel Ryne Miller—such as regulatory meetings with the CFTC, eventually also advising SBF to declare bankruptcy as the firm fell apart in November 2022. Now it’s been working on recovering FTX assets.
Charges: N/A
Trial role: Provider of legal documents that prosecutors may find useful; also is likely to be invoked by SBF’s legal team as a wrongdoer that advised FTX to make the very bad decisions that the firm is currently attempting to unwind
Best known as: The scapegoat SBF has repeatedly blamed in the past for helping spearhead some sort of government witch hunt against him
Other items of note:
In addition to the aforementioned Larry David, who starred in that FTX Super Bowl commercial, there were a great many celebrities paid heaping piles of money to promote FTX. These stars are facing their own separate class-action lawsuit from customers who are angry over how these famous people of means may have led them into a scam, and you can expect many of these luminaries to be mentioned at this week’s trial. These included plenty of legendary athletes—Tom Brady, Steph Curry, Naomi Osaka, Shaq, David Ortiz—as well as other boldfaced names like Brady’s supermodel ex-wife Gisele Bündchen and Shark Tank’s own Kevin O’Leary. We’ll see if any of them turn in a performance on the stand.
