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Pushkin. Hey

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fm, Slash Plus. Welcome

0:57

to Judging Sam The Trial of Sam Bankman

0:59

Freed. I'm Michael Lewis. Bankman

1:02

Freed was worth tens of billions of dollars before

1:05

ftx is cryptocurrency exchange

1:07

came apart at the scenes, and

1:09

now he's being tried for financial crimes. They could

1:11

send him to prison for the rest of his life.

1:16

I'm Lydia Jean Kott. It's the evening

1:18

of October sixteenth, and if you've been listening

1:21

to our show, you know that I spend every

1:23

day at the courthouse we're putting on the trial. Today

1:26

was honestly supposed to be pretty uneventful,

1:28

but it turned out to be anything But I

1:31

called Michael Lewis on my lunch break to explain what

1:33

happened.

1:34

This call is now being recorded. Hi,

1:38

there you are. I think what happened

1:40

this morning? Who's on the stand?

1:41

We all thought it was going to be not at all

1:44

a big day, So I actually came in kind of later

1:46

and I checked him with the photographers.

1:47

I was like, why are you guys even here?

1:48

And they were like, just forget maybe a picture

1:50

of Sam's parents. But yeah, Mishad took

1:53

the stand.

1:53

So he's the one by

1:55

far I know the most of the other

1:57

insiders. I mean I spent

2:00

endless time with him, and he's the

2:02

one who I'm

2:05

least sure of how he's going to be, and

2:07

I assume he's going to be on you usual,

2:09

Like, it's so personal. He's

2:12

still in Sam since he was fourteen,

2:16

and he's so close to the family that

2:19

it's just it's a really peculiar

2:21

situation. So I just kind of wonder how

2:23

he would be on the stand, And so what did you

2:26

think?

2:26

Yeah, that's interesting. She actually said he was always

2:28

intimidated by Sam at first, and

2:31

then when I asked him to follow up, he talked

2:33

about how I think the quote I wrote down is

2:35

Sam is a formidable character, brilliant.

2:37

I always had a stuck for him. Over time

2:40

that eroded. I became distressful.

2:43

What was his demeanor to

2:46

me?

2:46

She looked confident and

2:48

I checked in. I talked to the reporters who were

2:50

in the courtroom when he came in because I was in the overflow,

2:53

and they said that he walked in for the comfortably

2:55

too. I mean I could see him, you know, he was visiting

2:58

a bit in his seat. He

3:00

like, is that kep thing where you like pushed their

3:02

glasses up right when she sat down. And

3:05

then the first half was all about Sam's spending

3:08

and how it made that.

3:11

Yeah, yeah, is everywhere

3:13

atturn. He's trying to shut down Sam

3:15

buying stuff.

3:17

Yeah, And he

3:19

talked about, yeah, he would have had a fight about it,

3:21

and Nishad found it humiliating, and that Sam

3:24

told Nishad that the real

3:26

insidious problem was disagreeing

3:28

with him.

3:28

Basically.

3:29

The prosecution also asked Nashad to tell

3:31

the story of a Super Bowl party in La Sam

3:34

was there, Nishad said to consider

3:36

giving millions of dollars a venture capital

3:38

to K five, an investment company

3:41

led by the host of the party, Michael

3:43

Kivas. Nashad testified

3:45

that he was against this investment and that

3:47

it was an example of this kind of reckless

3:49

spending that made him uncomfortable. Nashad

3:52

testified that Sam disagreed. He

3:54

said being connected to Kivas would bring in

3:57

quote infinite connections. For FTX,

4:00

I recapped what happened for Michael, and he told

4:02

me he was at that party.

4:04

I was at that dinner.

4:06

Yeah, wow, I told

4:08

you this.

4:08

At the end of dinner, Michael Kieva

4:10

said, you've got to meet Hillary and I never met I

4:12

never met Hillary Clinton. And he brought

4:15

me over and Hillary was she

4:17

was She's like, look at me. She says, like,

4:20

what are you doing here? Because everybody

4:23

else was so famous. And I said,

4:25

I said that there's this guy. There were eighty

4:28

people there, though. I said, there's this guy in there

4:30

who I'm thinking about writing about. And she says

4:32

the guy with the hair, the guy with the hair. And

4:34

I said, how did you how did you know that? She goes,

4:36

She says, I thought he's exactly a character for

4:38

you. It was a really funny

4:41

exchange.

4:42

That is funny that shows she's a fan. It

4:44

was funny because Michead had to go through and say,

4:46

like, who all these people were? So he said Hillary Clinton,

4:49

you know, former presidential candidate, and Sprig

4:52

Kendall and Chris Jenner. He said, I honestly

4:54

could not tell you what they.

4:55

Do, which made anybody

4:59

else. Did

5:02

they have Bezos there?

5:05

Ye ye, yes, he's on there.

5:07

Did they have Leo DiCaprio, He's

5:09

on the list. Chris Rock?

5:12

Chris Rock was not on the list.

5:14

How about that? I can give you a better

5:17

list. All right, Well send

5:19

me anything when you come out. I'm really curious

5:21

about the shot I I to be continued.

5:23

Why

5:25

after I spoke to Michael, I headed back into the

5:27

courthouse and a lot more happened. There's

5:30

one moment that I want to highlight. Nishade

5:33

testified that at a certain point in September twenty

5:35

twenty two, Sam suggested shutting

5:37

Alameda down. At this point,

5:40

Caroline said it was impossible because

5:42

Alameda owed Ftex customers

5:44

too much money. Nishad said

5:46

that he was really startled to hear this, and

5:48

he called for a meeting with Sam, Gary,

5:50

Caroline, and Nishad. Sam

5:52

made some excuse and didn't come to that meeting.

5:55

At that meeting, Gary and Caroline explained

5:58

to him how deep in the whole Alameda

6:00

was. Nishad said he

6:02

was horrified to hear this, and

6:05

he immediately wanted to talk to Sam about

6:07

it. He said that he hardly ever spoke to Sam

6:09

one on one, but this seemed like a

6:11

time where it seemed important too, and he wanted

6:14

to speak to him in a place where they wouldn't be interrupted,

6:16

So he asked to speak to him on the balcony

6:19

of the penthouse where they lived. At this point,

6:21

the prosecutors showed a picture of the balcony,

6:24

which is pretty amazing. There's

6:26

a pool, there's these baskets,

6:29

there's these chaise lounges, and

6:32

he described how Sam

6:35

lay down in one of these chairs, and Nishad

6:37

was kind of urgently pacing. Nashad

6:40

was freaking out about all the money that Alameda

6:43

owed FTX, and Sam

6:45

said that he too had been worried about

6:47

it. In fact, he said, quote,

6:50

this has been taxing me for five or ten percent

6:52

of my productivity for the past year, which

6:55

is a different vibe from Nishad, who

6:57

when he heard about this money, said Jesus fucking

6:59

Christ. He asked Sam what

7:01

the plan was, and Sam

7:03

said that they were going to try and raise money to cover the

7:05

hole. And afterwards,

7:08

Nishad says he was deeply disturbed and

7:10

he felt betrayed. He said

7:12

that he felt like five years of blood, sweat

7:14

and tears of working towards something that he

7:16

thought was good had turned out

7:18

to be evil. He said that ever

7:21

since that moment, he wanted to quit, but

7:23

Sam made him feel like FTX needed

7:25

him and he was afraid that if he left everything

7:28

would come tumbling down. There

7:30

was a lot more that happened. Nashad

7:33

talked about ftx's endorsement deals,

7:35

how Sam told him to backdate certain financial

7:37

documents, and he discussed his political

7:39

ordinations. We'll get to all of that and more

7:42

in greater depth later this week, So

7:44

keep listening, and if you haven't, leave

7:46

a rating and a review. It helps others

7:48

find the show.

7:51

This episode of Judging Sam was hosted by

7:53

Lydia gen Kott, Lydia Jancott

7:56

is our court reporter, Catherine Girardeau,

7:58

and Nisha Venken produced this show. Sophie

8:01

Crane is our editor. Our music was

8:03

composed by Matthias Bossi and John

8:05

Evans of stell Wagon's Symphonet Judging

8:08

Sam is a preduction of Pushkin Industries.

8:11

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