Three days into Sam Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan’s warnings to the defense had become unmistakable, the New York Times reported. Judge Kaplan, who is presiding over the high-profile white-collar fraud case, repeatedly told Mr. Bankman-Fried’s lawyers to stop repeating themselves. Over and over, he directed them to rephrase their questions. And with his frequent interruptions of their cross-examinations, Judge Kaplan kept Mr. Bankman-Fried’s legal team off balance, putting it on the defensive. “I just want to express my growing concern about the extent of the entirely unnecessary repetition, and I’ve given you a lot of latitude,” Judge Kaplan told one of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s lawyers, Christian Everdell, during a brief break on Thursday when the jury was not in the courtroom. “You’re wearing out the welcome on the repetition.” Judge Kaplan is a veteran jurist with a history of presiding over prominent trials like that of Bankman-Fried, who is charged with orchestrating a scheme to misappropriate as much as $10 billion that customers deposited with his crypto exchange, FTX. While he is known for his no-nonsense attitude in the courtroom, legal experts say that Judge Kaplan is keeping the defense on an unusually short leash. Bankman-Fried’s trial resumed on Tuesday, with two crucial witnesses. Defense lawyers continued cross-examining Gary Wang, one of FTX’s top executives, who testified last week that Bankman-Fried had instructed him to insert a secret backdoor into the company’s code that enabled the theft of customer funds. There were fewer interruptions, with Everdell pointing out some inconsistencies in Mr. Wang’s initial statements to FBI agents and his testimony at trial last week. Prosecutors then called Caroline Ellison, Bankman-Fried’s former girlfriend, who ran a crypto trading firm that the government says tapped into FTX customer deposits. Wang and Ellison have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with the authorities. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to seven counts of wire fraud and conspiracy.
