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The process of jury selection – voir dire, or “to speak the truth” – heated up late last week after government lawyers blasted the defense team’s proposed questions. A good number of them could influence potential jurors, they argued in a letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan. Some were too prying, others too specific, the feds said. A handful “are a thinly veiled attempt to advance a defense narrative,” the government claimed. Many of the questions they took umbrage with shared a common theme. They were about appearances.
Sam Bankman-Fried is (or was?) a master of appearances. From the first time this author spotted the sneakers and shorts-wearing, wild-haired billionaire on a yacht in Miami (circa June 2021) to his final television interviews preceding his arrest, the crypto wunderkind cultivated perceptions. He shuffled between personas that bolstered this image of approachable greatness. Sam was the guy you could trust to get it right even though he couldn’t tie his dress shoes.
“I think it’s important for people to think I look crazy,” the government quoted Sam as saying. His “crazy” (playing video games during interviews, dressing like a dorm room schlub, sleeping on a beanbag chair and, oh yeah, those disheveled curls) made his greatness (speaking on Capitol Hill, pioneering massive philanthropic endeavors and, oh yeah, the crypto exchange FTX) all the greater.
But the government doesn’t want to let the defense highlight any of that before the trial begins. They’re calling on Judge Kaplan to reject jury questions that probe the righteousness of philanthropic philosophies and campaign finance. Sam’s ADHD should be left off the table, they say. And don’t even think about interrogating jurors’ FTX-specific opinions.
Real or engineered, Sam’s game of perceptions has ended. He’ll begin the trial as a well-dressed defendant just like any other. The government doesn't want his old image to dictate who might eventually put him in a khaki jumpsuit.
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Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial begins at 9:30 a.m. ET (13:30 UTC) on Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023, at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
