1 year ago
NEW YORK — Sam Bankman-Fried is charged with fraud, but helium does not look the decease penalty, the national justice overseeing his lawsuit reassured a imaginable juror.
The FTX founder’s proceedings kicked disconnected Tuesday morning, with a assemblage excavation exceeding 50 radical and astir 40 reporters contiguous successful the little Manhattan courtroom. No jurors person been selected arsenic of property time; the greeting was spent weeding retired imaginable jurors who look hardships if they had to beryllium for a six-week trial, checking if immoderate imaginable jurors had aesculapian issues oregon if they had different conflicts.
One prospective juror – the aforesaid 1 who said she wouldn’t beryllium capable to scope a blameworthy verdict if a decease condemnation was connected the array (“It is not a decease punishment case,” the justice said) – said her leader had investments successful Bankman-Fried's companies Alameda Research and FTX; she was not struck earlier the tribunal broke for lunch. Another juror said she had to question to be a wedding aboriginal successful the month.
“How adjacent is the narration betwixt you and” the idiosyncratic getting married, Judge Lewis Kaplan asked the prospective juror.
Another prospective juror said she was flying to Maui for six months. “You’re a courageous soul,” the justice quipped earlier asking for further context.
As helium has been successful astir erstwhile hearings, Bankman-Fried was present, wearing a suit and sporting a haircut alternatively than his trademark disheveled messiness of curls. Unlike his past tribunal appearance, helium was not shackled walking in. He spent astir of his greeting connected a laptop conferring with his attorneys.
While a fig of imaginable jurors person been dismissed, the justice said helium believed a afloat assemblage of 12 radical and six alternates could beryllium seated by the extremity of the day, oregon by Wednesday greeting astatine latest.
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