Judging Freedom - Sam Bankman-Fried funneled even more money into politics illegally(_)

Episode Date: December 14, 2022

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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, December 14th, 2022. It's about five minutes after three o'clock on the east coast of the United States, where a good part of us are still covered in about five inches of snow. We'll see if it warms up by the end of the week. States, where a good part of us are still covered in about five inches of snow. And we'll see if it warms up by the end of the week. Sam Bankman Freed, the case is getting curiouser and curiouser. One wonders why the DOJ had him arrested on the morning of his testimony and the same day he was indicted, you know, the Department of Justice can time an indictment by when they sign it. The grand jury can vote anytime they want, but the indictment becomes lawful and effective only when the foreperson of the grand jury and the

chief prosecutor, or in this case, U.S. attorney, sign signed the indictment so why they foreclosed his testimony before congress is beyond me because this kid had he's only 30 years old no pr advice and apparently notwithstanding who his parents are they're both tenured professors of law at stanford law school which is top five law school, among the top five law schools in the United States. So notwithstanding all of that, he didn't seem to have any advice that he was taking either from PR people or from lawyers. He was about to answer questions by members of the House Financial Services Committee, a hostile environment for him. Both Republicans and Democrats were about to go for his jugular. And on the basis of what he said in other environments, he would have made

admissions of his criminal behavior, perhaps without even realizing they were admissions. I mean, that would have been fodder for the DOJ. So it's beyond me why there was such a rush to indict him. And if you read the indictment, it's a boilerplate. It looks like you could look it up in a book called Indictments for Dummies. I mean, they accuse him of conspiring with people. They don't even name who the conspirators were. There was some rush to indict him, which is dumb. The statute of limitations here is five years. He had already been separated from both of his companies. He no longer had control of the assets of the people who invested with him. There does seem to be a lot of evidence that he was a crook, but he was not in a position to perpetrate this anymore.

They should have given him enough rope with which to hang himself, so to speak, and let him speak all he wanted before Congress. And for heaven's sakes, if you're going to indict somebody, file an indictment. Name the conspirators who conspired with him. Be specific in the indictment. I assure you that there will be what's called a superseding indictment, another indictment which will take the place of this one, which will have the specifics in it that a defendant is entitled to under the Constitution and under federal law. There's no way this indictment can survive a motion to dismiss by Bankman-Fried's lawyers because the indictment is so threadbare. And again, scratching my head, why? Why the rush? Why the rush? All right. One of you has asked a question about intent. Sam Bankman Freed says he never intended to defraud anybody. Can intent be proven by behavior? Absolutely, intent can be proven by behavior. In fact,

intent is almost always proven by behavior, because if a person is going to get involved in a criminal conspiracy, they're not going to write down what their intent is. The jury will be asked to infer intent from the facts that are before them. He got X billion in investments. He engaged superstar athletes and celebrities, Steph Curry, Shaquille O'Neal, Tom Brady, Naomi Osaka, to Brady's former wife, herself a celebrity, Gisele Bundchen, to endorse his product. He obviously was raising a lot of money from a lot of wealthy people. A 30-year-old guy, and he had raised, he raises billions. He then takes the billions, and instead of investing it in prudent investments, as he promised he would, he invests it in a company that he owns, which pays him an extraordinary salary, which pays his lifestyle, which pays his bills, which buys him a lot of

luxury items, including a penthouse apartment on the beach in the Bahamas. So there is enough here to infer that this was a scheme to bilk people and he got caught at the wrong time. You know, the bilkers always believe that they're going to raise enough money to pay people back, but they get caught at the wrong time. Something happened. Word got out there that Sam wasn't investing the money as he promised he would. People started asking for their money back, like a run on the bank, and the money wasn't there. That's when he declared bankruptcy and resigned. Again, why there was the rush to judgment, who knows?

Is ignorance and stupidity and sloppiness a defense? Yes, it is. So if you say that 2 plus 2 equals 22 in order to enhance artificially the worth of your corporation, you do this thousands of times. Well, that's a crime because you're claiming that your company is worth more than it is in order to induce people to invest in it. But if you say that two plus two is a 22 because you're as equals 22, because you made a clerical mistake or because you're stupid and you think that it really is 22, that is not a crime. That is not an intent to deceive. Sam's defense is he was a good salesperson,

but a lousy bookkeeper, and he made mistakes. I don't know that a jury will accept it. A lot of people lost a lot of money. But I do know that no judge will allow him to be tried on the basis of this threadbare, straight out of indictment, the book Indictments for Dummies. There is no such book. I'm being a little bit sarcastic here. At least I'm not aware of it. Indictment. And I assure you that there'll be a superseding indictment, which will have the details that defense is entitled to, which again raises the question, why the rush to indictment?

If a guy's going on television and admitting he did wrong, let him go. Why shut him up? Maybe we'll find out one day soon. More as we get it. Judge Napolitano, judging freedom.