By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell book
NY Mag Song 1
LITERARY SDNY, Dec 28 – While after the hand-off of the FTX case the new judge had not been seen, he issued an order reaffirming the January 3 court date, the arraignment and initial pre-trial conference.
Kurt Wheelock tweeted it out, with a photo of the docket entry; he didn't think it was worth a story, even on his blog.
But a wire service felt different, and headlined its piece that SBF "to enter plea in FTX fraud case." That made it sound like he was going to plead guilty, at least to Kurt. That he would plead not-guilty, like everyone did reflexively at their first appearance, could hardly merit a story. But that's how they wrote it.
And many in the crypto press, and even Politico Pro, followed this lede. One echoed, "Bankman-Fried may enter plea in NY federal court next week."
But of COURSE he would enter some plea - that had already been scheduled before Judge Abrams, before she recused herself. And defendants always were arraigned, a simple "not guilty," in their first appearance before the assigned District Judge. Here, the hunger for news, any news, led to mis-reporting, it seemed to Kurt.
He rarely made predictions about the court, but the odds of Bankman-Fried negotiating and signing a plea agreement to 20 years in prison, in the past week, the first week, seems to him to be zero. But that's how people, or at least this person, read the headline. Was Kurt getting himself back into trouble by noting it?
This has happened when Kurt was at the UN. The small, still dwindling press corpses there would put out stories about "Emergency meeting about North Korea!" when it was clear that nothing would change, North Korea never obeyed these warnings, quite the contrary. But the UN press corpses needed to make the carcass they covered seemed relevant, to make themselves seem relevant (inaccurately), and so it went.
Kurt had been the party pooper, and got thrown out. Now this.
Meanwhile out in Palo Alto Michael "Money Ball" Lewis was said to be meeting with Bankman-Fried. Those who had tried to flak for Elizabeth Holmes, or Trevor Milton, were widely dissed. How was this different? It was a zeitgeist case, people kept saying.
Crypto fraud was in the news, beyond SBF. Kurt covered the unsealed indictment of one Avraham Eisenberg, manipulating his own token on Mango Market in Puerto Rico, then fleeing to Israel.
The prosecutors did not put out any press release about that one. Maybe it was the Christmas to New Years lull. A lull that Kurt Wheelock would try to use, while he still could. To be continued- song 1 here; more on Patreon here 1 and here 2 and here 3 and here 4 and here 5 and here 6
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