Testifying on the sixth day of Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial in New York, former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison admitted to providing fudged numbers for review by Genesis.
According to reports from the courtroom on Oct. 11, Ellison claimed Bankman-Fried directed her to create “alternative” balance sheets on Alameda’s use of crypto exchange FTX’s funds. She reportedly testified that she had provided seven spreadsheets, one of which SBF presented to Genesis. The document did not reveal that Alameda had borrowed $10 billion from FTX.
“Sam said, ‘Don’t send the balance sheet to Genesis,’” said Ellison, according to reports. “We were borrowing $10 billion from FTX, and we had $5 billion in loans to our own executives and affiliated entities. We thought Genesis might share the info.”
Ellison returned to the witness stand at SBF’s trial after first appearing in the courtroom on Oct. 10. In contrast to her earlier testimony, prosecutors questioned the former Alameda CEO about her feelings surrounding her deception about the firm’s financials:
“I was worrying about customer withdrawals from FTX, this getting out, people to be hurt […] I didn’t feel good. If people found out [about Alameda using FTX funds], they would all try to withdraw from FTX.”
The long awaited courtroom sketch of Caroline Ellison testifying against SBF at his trial.
The former CEO answered in the affirmative when prosecutors asked her if she considered her actions to be “dishonest” and “wrong.” Ellison has largely placed the blame leading to the events surrounding the collapse of FTX on SBF due to his alleged direction surrounding the misuse of customer funds, while defense lawyers seem to be framing the former Alameda CEO as the instigator.
Ellison is expected to be a star witness for the prosecution in SBF’s trial following testimony from FTX co-founder and former chief technology officer Gary Wang. Former FTX engineering director Nishad Singh has not taken the stand but was named as a potential witness as part of an agreement with the United States Justice Department.
Prosecutors for Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial said they expected to rest their case on Oct. 26 or Oct. 27, following which the defense lawyers will start calling witnesses. SBF has pleaded not guilty to seven criminal counts related to fraud at FTX, as well as five charges he will face in a March 2024 trial.
The Archbishop of York has told Sky News the UK should resist Reform’s “kneejerk” plan for the mass deportation of migrants, telling Nigel Farage he is not offering any “long-term solution”.
Stephen Cottrell said in an interview with Trevor Phillips he has “every sympathy” with people who are concerned about asylum seekers coming to the country illegally.
But he criticised the plan announced by Reform on Tuesday to deport 600,000 people, which would be enabled by striking deals with the Taliban and Iran, saying it will not “solve the problem”.
Mr Cottrell is currently acting head of the Church of England while a new Archbishop of Canterbury is chosen.
Image: Pic: Jacob King/PA Wire
Image: The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell in 2020.
File pic: PA
Phillips asked him: “What’s your response to the people who are saying the policy should be ‘you land here, unlawfully, you get locked up and you get deported straight away. No ifs, no buts’?”
Mr Cottrell said he would tell them “you haven’t solved the problem”, adding: “You’ve just put it somewhere else and you’ve done nothing to address the issue of what brings people to this country.
More on Migrant Crisis
Related Topics:
“And so if you think that’s the answer, you will discover in due course that all you have done is made the problem worse.
“Don’t misunderstand me, I have every sympathy with those who find this difficult, every sympathy – as I do with those living in poverty.
“But… we should actively resist the kind of isolationist, short term kneejerk ‘send them home’.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
2:04
What do public make of Reform’s plans?
Image: Nigel Farage at the launch of Reform UK’s plan to deport asylum seekers. Pic: PA
Asked if that was his message to the Reform leader, he said: “Well, it is. I mean, Mr Farage is saying the things he’s saying, but he is not offering any long-term solution to the big issues which are convulsing our world, which lead to this. And, I see no other way.”
Mr Farage, the MP for Clacton, was asked at a news conference this week what he would say if Christian leaders opposed his plan.
“Whoever the Christian leaders are at any given point in time, I think over the last decades, quite a few of them have been rather out of touch, perhaps with their own flock,” he said.
“We believe that what we’re offering is right and proper, and we believe for a political party that was founded around the slogan of family, community, country that we are doing right by all of those things, with these plans we put forward today.”
Sky News has approached Mr Farage for comment.
Farage won’t be greeting this as good news of the gospel – nor will govt ministers
When Tony Blair’s spin doctor Alastair Campbell told journalists that “We don’t do God”, many took it as a statement of ideology.
In fact it was the caution of a canny operator who knows that the most dangerous opponent in politics is a religious leader licensed to challenge your very morality.
Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York, currently the effective head of the worldwide Anglican communion, could not have been clearer in his denunciation of what he calls the Reform party’s “isolationist, short term, kneejerk ‘send them home'” approach to asylum and immigration.
I sense that having ruled himself out of the race for next Archbishop of Canterbury, Reverend Cottrell feels free to preach a liberal doctrine.
Unusually, in our interview he pinpoints a political leader as, in effect, failing to demonstrate Christian charity.
Nigel Farage, who describes himself as a practising Christian, won’t be greeting this as the good news of the gospel.
But government ministers will also be feeling nervous.
Battered for allowing record numbers of cross- Channel migrants, and facing legal battles on asylum hotels that may go all the way to the Supreme Court, Labour has tried to head off the Reform challenge with tougher language on border control.
The last thing the prime minister needs right now is to make an enemy of the Almighty – or at least of his representatives on Earth.