Facing 110 years in prison, Sam Bankman-Fried “can’t recall” what he did at FTX

Enlarge / Sam Bankman-Fried leaves federal court in New York on Thursday, February 16, 2023. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)

Facing cross-examination at his criminal fraud trial yesterday, Sam Bankman-Fried repeatedly testified that he doesn’t remember details about what he did and said while running cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Bankman-Fried responded “I’m not sure” or “I can’t recall” to many questions from US prosecutor Danielle Sassoon, according to news reports from the trial.

Sassoon “grilled Mr. Bankman-Fried about the inconsistencies between his public statements and how he ran his crypto empire before it collapsed spectacularly in November,” a New York Times article said. Bankman-Fried “insisted that he couldn’t remember much of what he had said publicly” and “added that he wasn’t significantly involved in the hedge fund he founded, Alameda Research.”

The New York Post wrote that Bankman-Fried answered with some variation of “I can’t recall” over 100 times on Monday. But Sassoon “presented jurors with a mountain of tweets, emails, and podcast clips revealing that the MIT grad did in fact say dozens of things he claimed not to have recalled,” the article said.