Ex-Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison took the stand in a second day of testimony in Sam Bankman-Fried criminal trial on Oct. 11.
Ellison testified that she communicated with Bankman-Fried and other company members through Signal, a messaging app with an auto-delete feature that Bankman-Fried instructed employees to use. She further testified that Bankman-Fried instructed her and others not to leave anything in writing.
Prosecutors raised a piece of evidence reading: “Sam Bankman-Fried set the disappearing message time for [one] week,” which Ellison read aloud.
When Bankman-Fried was on bail prior to trial, his use of Signal was restricted because of its capabilities. Court proceedings at that time suggested that Bankman-Fried was aware that the app’s auto-deletion features could make legal cases more difficult.
Testimony implies bribery
Ellison also said that she and Bankman-Fried spoke in coded terms when their companies provided a bribe to Chinese government officials in an effort to unlock funds that the country had frozen following a money laundering investigation.
Ellison implied that she lacked full awareness of the situation. She said that Bankman-Fried had merely told her that an FTX executive, David Ma, had found a way to unfreeze the accounts by sending $100 million in crypto to certain addresses.
She added that Alameda co-CEO Sam Trabucco directed her to make the transaction over Signal, but said that she was not told who owned the receiving addresses.
Judge Lewis Kaplan, however, agreed to strike parts of this the testimony in a sidebar, noting that Bankman-Fried is not currently charged with bribery. Bankman-Fried may face such charges at a later date, but his Bahamas extradition treaty
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Author: Mike Dalton
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