Everyone and their mother (literally: one prosecutor’s mom was there, as well as the defendant’s) came to watch Sam Bankman-Fried spar with the government on his biggest stand yet. A rainbow sneaker-wearing Michael Lewis caught a delayed red eye from California to lean in on the penthouse courtroom’s wooden pews. In front of him, Sam’s publicist nervously chewed on a blue pen while three sketch artists added flairs of color to their works; to their left nearly 20 reporters scribbled in notebooks that were fast running low on paper. All around the courtroom a revolving cast of five or more U.S. Marshals kept everything under close control.
Sam kept himself under control – or, I guess his version of control. Which is probably not the control his lawyers want (which would be under their control). He continues to present himself as the master of his own story. At least, he thinks he is.
During a blistering cross-examination by Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, Sam Bankman-Fried voluntarily defenestrated his unrecognizably svelte frame into a treacherous pit of legal whoopsie-daisy that even Judge Kaplan tried to save him from – and failed.
Source: Sam Bankman-Fried’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
