Why was the jury dismissed during SBF’s first round of testimony?

Sam Bankman-Fried took the stand in his own criminal defense trial on Oct. 26. However, many following the proceedings were surprised as Judge Lews Kaplan ordered the jury out of the room before continuing.

According to Inner City Press, which has reported from inside the courtroom during each day of Bankman-Fried’s trial, Judge Lewis Kaplan told jurors:

“I’m sending you home. You will be getting the case to decide in the first few days of next week … There are areas of testimony that the government contends the jury should not hear.”

Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press suggested that the current testimony focuses on matters that will likely lead to objections. This will allow Judge Kaplan to rule in advance which questions Bankman-Fried’s lawyer may ask him in front of the jury.

The jury will could other questions — and possibly some of the questions raised today — as Bankman-Fried’s testimony continues at a later date.

It should be noted that government prosecutors previously took steps to block the admissibility of certain evidence and exclude Bankman-Fried’s witnesses before the trial began. Related issues may once again be at play.

The substance of SBF’s testimony

The first hour of Bankman-Fried’s testimony has revealed little. However, the former executive has commented on frequently-raised topics.

First, Bankman-Fried commented on the use of Signal, a communications platform with auto-deletion features. Much earlier proceedings suggested that Bankman-Fried knew that auto-deletion could prevent legal action. However, Bankman-Fried said today that he turned on auto-delete because the affected discussion channels were not for decision-making and turned off the feature because he had “heard from regulators.”

Bankman-Fried additionally stated that encrypted communications were important to FTX because the company’s third parties had been hacked, because the company was headquartered in Hong Kong, and because of the risk of former employees selling data.

The former FTX executive also commented on his role in setting up the shell company North Dimension, his role in requesting loans, terms of service, the holding of customer funds in an omnibus wallet, and meetings with Bahamas regulators.

Bankman-Fried had not completed his testimony at the time of writing. CryptoSlate’s coverage of the trial will continue as more information is available.