by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
LITERARY SDNY, Oct 5 -- Fifth day of October and SBF's college roommate Adam Yedidia was still on the stand. Yedidia was describing a woodshed moment with Sam. Except that it was a "hut," he called it, and not a woodshed. It was beside a paddle tennis court in the Bahamas. Yedidia said he asked, How long before FTX gets back to being bullet proof?
He said Sam looked concerned - usually for him, Yedidia said - and answered, "Six months to three years." But they didn't have that long...
Next up was a guy who had invested in FTX, Matt Huang from Pardigm. He said he'd had Zoom calls with Sam about not having a board of directors. But that if he'd known the money was going to Alameda he would not have invested.
Kurt thought, Wasn't Paradigm in a better position than retail customers, even that unsympathetic French cocoa trader from London, to have sussed out the Alameda backdoor?
It was like JPMorgan Chase and Jaime Dimon using the SDNY prosecutors to go after Charlie Javice for making up customers of Frank. Caveat emptor, no honor among thieves. But clearly the prosecutors thought this was a box they needed to check.
Finally there was Gary Wang, supposed co-founder of Alameda and FTX. But he only owned 10% and let Sam make all the decisions. He'd pleaded guilty and now testified as a cooperator. Michael Lewis had laughing predicted on his own self-interview podcast that Gary Wang "couldn't speak" and would freeze up on the stand. But it wasn't happening. At least not yet.
More on the SBF trial dynamics and jury on Substack here
More book sample on Substack here. Extended on Patreon here.
Book here
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