by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
LITERARY SDNY, Nov 1 -- First day of November and SBF was on the grill. For hours.
Assistant US Attorney Nicholas Roos stood at the platform running through the crimes now amnesia of the defendant, who sat slumped in his chair typing away at this laptop.
If convicted, these laptop privileged would disappear. Type it while you can, seemed to be the idea.
At one point the jurors' video screens broke down and a break was taken.
Even upon return, Judge Kaplan told them not to use the monitor in the back row, and moved Alternate Juror Number 1 into the spot previously occupied by Number Four, who came in sick one day then wanted to stay, to stay on the jury, but got bounced.
Unlike the others he was now free to reach out on social media. Or was he?
When it was Mark Cohen's turn, the mood changed, decidedly winter. He looked straight down and read out his statement.
Sam - yes, personalize it, Sam - was not a monster. He didn't even play poker, Cohen insisted, twice focusing on the photo of SBF with a deck of cards.
On Cohen's photo array was the shot of Sam slumping, even then, with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. Cohen said, in words or substance,
They try to make it a crime, to look uncomfortable with Bill Clinton. Many had. But that wasn't the crime: it was using FTX customers' deposited funds to pay access to Bill and Larry David and the people in the photo at the Super Bowl party.
Why had Cohen put that one up, too? Maybe to say the prosecutors were being unfair. Trial by selfie (or now pizza). If so, Sam was losing
More on this, including pizza and timing, on Substack here
More book sample on Substack here. Extended on Patreon here.
Book here
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