FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried plans to present financial expert witness in defense

Embattled FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) plans to call a single financial expert witness for his defense in the ongoing criminal trial.

In an Oct. 23 letter, SBF lawyers proposed inviting Joseph Pimbley, a financial expert with over 30 years of experience in derivatives and securities trading, to counter testimonies provided by the government witnesses, including former FTX executives and the former CEO of Alameda Research Caroline Ellison.

Pimbley’s testimony will center on Alameda’s line of credit (LOC) fluctuations from $1 billion to $3 billion between Oct.7, 2021, and Sept. 18, 2022. Additionally, he will provide insight into the significant decrease in June 2022.

Furthermore, his testimony will offer a detailed account of the balances for users not affiliated with Alameda or FTX as of last November, as outlined in the official filing.

“The majority of balances for non-Alameda, non-FTX users (i.e., accounts excluding Alameda’s accounts and FTX’s own accounts) are concentrated in just four coins (USD, BTC, ETH, and USDT) relative to the hundreds of coins defined within the FTX database, and more than 75% of non-Alameda, non-FTX balances arise from accounts that have spot margin enabled, spot margin lending enabled, or show futures activity.”

Pimbley’s testimony would be based on data extracted from the FTX’s database.

Pimbley was one of the seven expert witnesses SBF had proposed for his defense in August. However, Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected the proposed list, citing shortcomings in each individual’s stated opinions and the general irrelevance of planned testimony.

Despite the rejection, the Court ruled that SBF could call four of these witnesses in response to government witnesses.

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