Speaker 1: This is Bloombird Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: For six weeks, the Alex Murdoch case has attracted true
Speaker 1: crime fans a murder with no real physical evidence, not
Speaker 1: even a weapon or bloody close, but a case showing
Speaker 1: the strands of old world power, money and privilege in
Speaker 1: rural South Carolina, and the strands of New world greed, addiction,
Speaker 1: and egocentric behavior. After hearing more than seventy five witnesses,
Speaker 1: the jury deliberated for less than three hours before finding
Speaker 1: Murdoch guilty of killing his twenty two year old son
Speaker 1: Paul with two shotgun blasts and his fifty two year
Speaker 1: old wife, Maggie with four or five rifle shots. At sentencing,
Speaker 1: Murdah maintained his innocence. I'm innocent. I would never hurt
Speaker 1: my wife Maggie, and I would never hurt my son
Speaker 1: Paul Paul. But Judge Clifton Newman handed down the harshest
Speaker 1: possible sentence he could consecutive life sentences without parole. A
Speaker 1: sentence you to prison for murder in hand for the
Speaker 1: rest of your natural life. Those sentences will run consecutive.
Speaker 1: Defense attorneys Dick Carputlian and Jim Griffin say they'll appeal
Speaker 1: the conviction based on the judge's decision to allow in
Speaker 1: evidence of Murdaugh's past financial misdeeds. Once they got that
Speaker 1: character character information, as he's a thief, he's a liar,
Speaker 1: then it dictated this jury had to think he was
Speaker 1: aspicable human being and not to be believed. So it
Speaker 1: was about character, it wasn't about motives. So as a result,
Speaker 1: our options were limited. Joining me as former federal prosecutor
Speaker 1: Jessica Roth, a professor at Cardozo Law School. There was
Speaker 1: no direct evidence, no murder weapon, no blood soaked evidence,
Speaker 1: no physical evidence at all. Well, there was obviously the
Speaker 1: evidence of the crime scene, the bodies of the victims,
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of evidence introduced, i think
Speaker 1: in the nature of photographs and evidence about the autopsies
Speaker 1: to show the state of the victims. And there was
Speaker 1: significant expert testimony dedicated to showing the kinds of bullets
Speaker 1: that were used in the trajectory of the bullet and
Speaker 1: the positioning of the victims introduced by the prosecution in
Speaker 1: part to support the theory that the victims were taken
Speaker 1: by surprise and that there was no evidence of defensive
Speaker 1: wounds to suggest that they knew their assailant, and you
Speaker 1: weren't expecting harm from anyone else. So there was evidence
Speaker 1: sort of about the state of the victim. There was
Speaker 1: also evidence in the nature of this very important cell
Speaker 1: phone video that Paul Murdoch, who was one of the victims,
Speaker 1: the defendant's son, took moments before the time at which
Speaker 1: the prosecution placed some time of death for both victims.
Speaker 1: And on that video, which Paul took mostly of a
Speaker 1: dog that had been entrusted to the Murdoch family by
Speaker 1: a friend of Paul. Do you hear Paul talking and
Speaker 1: showing the dog he was examining, in particular the dog's
Speaker 1: tail for his friend who was concerned about the condition
Speaker 1: of the dog's tail. And you hear Maggie, who was
Speaker 1: the other victim, the defendant's wife, speaking, and then you
Speaker 1: also hear a third voice. And that was what was
Speaker 1: so significant about that video because numerous witnesses identified that
Speaker 1: third voice just heard, not seen, that was identified as
Speaker 1: being the defendant, Alec Murdoch, and so that placed him
Speaker 1: at the kennels which was the scene of the crime,
Speaker 1: just minutes before the murders allegedly happened. So that was
Speaker 1: probably the single most important piece of evidence in the
Speaker 1: entire case, was that cell phone video. The coroner said
Speaker 1: that the victims were killed between eight pm and ten pm,
Speaker 1: but the prosecution used the victim's phone usage to pinpoint
Speaker 1: the time of death to eight forty nine. That was
Speaker 1: pretty elaborate, wasn't it using that data? So the time
Speaker 1: of death was pinned by the prosecution to the time
Speaker 1: when the cell phones were both victims locked for the
Speaker 1: last time. And while it's certainly not the case that
Speaker 1: when you stop using your phone and it therefore locks,
Speaker 1: that you're necessarily dead, and that was in fact an
Speaker 1: argument that the defense made in closing that we shouldn't
Speaker 1: accept that as meaning death. And nevertheless, I think was
Speaker 1: persuasive evidence that it is likely that the defendants died
Speaker 1: around the time that their phones locked for the last time,
Speaker 1: because the other evidence of their phone usage suggested that
Speaker 1: they were people who were using their phones fairly continuously.
Speaker 1: And so although it's possible that they remained alive for
Speaker 1: some significant period of time after their phone locked for
Speaker 1: the last time, when one looks at their cell phone
Speaker 1: usage overall and then appreciates that the phones locked at
Speaker 1: this moment in time in the context of their overall
Speaker 1: cell phone usage, it's plausible that that was when they died,
Speaker 1: when the phones locked for the last time. And that's
Speaker 1: particularly the case given that, as I mentioned, a moment ago,
Speaker 1: Paul had taken this video of his friend's dog, and
Speaker 1: he had been actively communicating by his phone with his
Speaker 1: friend about the dog, and the friend was asking for
Speaker 1: Paul to send him the video right away. And so
Speaker 1: given that Paul did not, and the friend then followed
Speaker 1: up with messages that Paul did not respond to, friend
Speaker 1: followed up saying send me the video that supported the
Speaker 1: prosecution's argument that Paul's death happened. Write about them. Much
Speaker 1: has been made of the fact that Murdo took the stand.
Speaker 1: A lot of people have been looking back on this,
Speaker 1: including the South Carolina Attorney General. He said Alex Murda
Speaker 1: taking the stand was a fatal move in his murder trial. Well,
Speaker 1: I think one other really important part of this case
Speaker 1: that I need to mention, particularly following our discussion of
Speaker 1: the cell phone video, is that the defendant had told
Speaker 1: police officers that he had not been at the Kennel's
Speaker 1: the night of the murders with his wife and his son.
Speaker 1: And so the significance of the cell phone video was
Speaker 1: partly that it placed the defendant at the scene of
Speaker 1: the crime moments before the moment where the prosecutors contended
Speaker 1: that the murders happened, but also that the defendant denied
Speaker 1: having been there, and that was essentially disproven by the
Speaker 1: cell phone video, which he didn't know existed when he
Speaker 1: first spoke to police officers. So he had lied on
Speaker 1: the night of the murders when he first spoke to
Speaker 1: police about when he had last seen Maggie and Paul,
Speaker 1: and then he continued to tell that lie for several
Speaker 1: months thereafter. And so it was the combination of the
Speaker 1: video putting him there at the scene moments before and
Speaker 1: his denial of having been there when he didn't know
Speaker 1: about the existence of the video that I think was
Speaker 1: really critical to the prosecution's case here. And so when
Speaker 1: you understand in context that the defendant had denied being
Speaker 1: at the kennels repeatedly, and then several witnesses at the
Speaker 1: trial identified his voice as being the third voice heard
Speaker 1: on that video, that was so crucial because it was
Speaker 1: so close to the time of death at the place
Speaker 1: of the deaths, the defendant, or at least the defense attorneys,
Speaker 1: seemed to think that he had to offer an explanation
Speaker 1: for why he had lied about not having been there
Speaker 1: moments before the killings. I still don't get the motive
Speaker 1: here that the prosecutors put forth. He killed his wife
Speaker 1: and son to distract from his financial crimes. So their
Speaker 1: theory of motive, I think developed over the course of
Speaker 1: the trial. It always started with this idea that there
Speaker 1: was a reckoning coming for the pendants, based in large
Speaker 1: part on his financial crimes and misdeeds. He had stolen
Speaker 1: from his law partners. He had stolen from his clients,
Speaker 1: including people who were the young children of his former
Speaker 1: housekeeper who died while working on his estate. He had
Speaker 1: stolen from all of these people, and the moment of
Speaker 1: reckoning for those crimes was imminently upon him. That was
Speaker 1: the prosecution's theory, and that theory was supported by not
Speaker 1: only the evidence to establish that he had committed those crimes,
Speaker 1: but also that he had been confronted by the chief
Speaker 1: financial officer of his law firm the very day of
Speaker 1: the murders, so that afternoon, he was confronted about hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of dollars that he had misappropriated from the firm,
Speaker 1: so that, according to the prosecution's theory, was part of
Speaker 1: the trigger for him to react, act and try to
Speaker 1: find a way out, even if not a permanent way out,
Speaker 1: something that would distract attention and essentially get people off
Speaker 1: his back for some period of time, so that he
Speaker 1: could perhaps figure out how to sort of shift money
Speaker 1: around one more time, as he had done many times
Speaker 1: in the past, by borrowing from people or perhaps feeling
Speaker 1: from others to replenish the coffers or to satisfy some people,
Speaker 1: and the idea would be that he would be perceived
Speaker 1: as the grieving widower and poor father whose son had
Speaker 1: been murdered, and so he would get a little bit
Speaker 1: of breathing room and forbearance. That was chiefly the prosecution's
Speaker 1: theory coming into the case. As the trial continued, they
Speaker 1: added some more layers to that theory of motive, and
Speaker 1: I think added on the idea that he was concerned
Speaker 1: about his own reputation and standing and that of his
Speaker 1: family in the community. He was from a long line
Speaker 1: of respected lawyer years in the community. His father had
Speaker 1: been the head prosecutor in the county, as had his grandfather.
Speaker 1: He himself had been an assistance prosecutor in the county,
Speaker 1: and so part of the theories seemed to become that
Speaker 1: it was the fear of reputational harm and prestige that
Speaker 1: went into his motivations in reacting the way he did.
Speaker 1: It was nearly six weeks of testimony from seventy five witnesses,
Speaker 1: but the jury came back in just three hours, And
Speaker 1: according to the jurors afterwards, they said that they said
Speaker 1: a prayer, they took an initial anonymous vote, and in
Speaker 1: that vote, two jurors thought he was not guilty, and
Speaker 1: one juror had not made up his or her mind.
Speaker 1: And then they said that within forty five minutes, the
Speaker 1: jurors who wanted to vote guilty had convinced the other
Speaker 1: three they don't have to do anything, But wouldn't it
Speaker 1: seem logical to go through the evidence and, you know,
Speaker 1: look it through before deciding that a man is guilty
Speaker 1: of killing his wife and child. I was very surprised
Speaker 1: by the speed of the verdict. I truly was shocked
Speaker 1: that it came back as quickly as it did. I
Speaker 1: did not expect that. What I thought when I first
Speaker 1: heard that they had reached a verdict at quickly and
Speaker 1: had heard what the verdict was, was that the jury
Speaker 1: must have seen this as a fairly straightforward case at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, that despite the weeks of
Speaker 1: testimony and the many witnesses and exhibits that were offered,
Speaker 1: that it came down to only a few pieces of
Speaker 1: evidence that were critical to their deliberations, And I suspected
Speaker 1: it was that video that Paul took at the kennels
Speaker 1: that placed the defendants at the scene of the crime
Speaker 1: a few minutes before the time of death, and the
Speaker 1: defendants denial, repeated denial until he was confronted with that
Speaker 1: cell phone video and the witnesses who identified his voice
Speaker 1: as having been on that video, that it effectively came
Speaker 1: down to those two things, That why would he have
Speaker 1: denied having been there, which seems like such a crucial
Speaker 1: piece of evidence to provide to law enforcement to look
Speaker 1: for the killers of your wife and son, And that
Speaker 1: much of the other evidence in the case in a
Speaker 1: sense was peripheral to those basic elements. And the jurors
Speaker 1: who were interviewed since the verdict came down the extent
Speaker 1: i've heard their comments, they have corroborated so there comments
Speaker 1: have supported why inferred, which was that it was really
Speaker 1: quite straightforward to them. And I have heard one make
Speaker 1: additional comments about their deliberation, saying that there were some
Speaker 1: jurors who initially were not ready to vote for guilty,
Speaker 1: but not from a firm conviction that the defendant was
Speaker 1: not guilty, but rather that they just had some questions
Speaker 1: they wanted to work through in discussions with the other
Speaker 1: jurors and reviewing the evidence before they got to a
Speaker 1: place where they felt comfortable voting guilty, and that that
Speaker 1: was interesting to add on to what had previously been said,
Speaker 1: because I too had heard about that initial vote and
Speaker 1: didn't understand how somebody who may have been committed to
Speaker 1: not guilty would have come around so quickly. But to
Speaker 1: now hear the additional comments, it sounds like it wasn't
Speaker 1: so much that there were two jurors committed to not guilty,
Speaker 1: but rather that they were too not yet ready that
Speaker 1: makes sense guilty, which is different. Let's talk about the appeal.
Speaker 1: What the defense attorneys have said is they're going to
Speaker 1: appeal around the question of whether the judge was too
Speaker 1: permissive in allowing evidence of his past financial wrongdoing and lies.
Speaker 1: They said there was no significant evidence linking his financial
Speaker 1: crimes to the motive for murder, and that the prosecutors
Speaker 1: said they needed to establish his motive. Then they ended
Speaker 1: up using it to show he was a liar in
Speaker 1: a conman, and so when he took the stand, the
Speaker 1: jurors were already convinced that he was a liar in
Speaker 1: a then because of all the evidence of financial crimes.
Speaker 1: So I think the most significant issue out appeal will
Speaker 1: be this evidence three question of whether the judge correctly
Speaker 1: allowed the prosecutors to put in the evidence about his
Speaker 1: financial crime. It was introduced on this theory that it
Speaker 1: established motive for the crime, and the jury was I believe,
Speaker 1: instructed that they should only consider it for purposes of
Speaker 1: establishing his motives. There are a couple of issues though,
Speaker 1: in terms of evaluating the likelihood of success on an
Speaker 1: appeal with respect to this evidence. One is, even if
Speaker 1: a reviewing court were to find that the judge did
Speaker 1: commit error in his analysis in permitting it, I think
Speaker 1: it would be subject to harmless error review, and the
Speaker 1: court would look at through the other evidence in the case,
Speaker 1: and if the court thought that at the end of
Speaker 1: the day the other evidence was overwhelming, it would not
Speaker 1: reverse even if it thought that the trial court had
Speaker 1: committed error. The second issue is that because the defendant
Speaker 1: took the stand, evidence about, or questions about, and those
Speaker 1: other crimes to a significant extent would have been permissible
Speaker 1: to impeach him. And so, in a sense, the issue
Speaker 1: may have been partially waived because the defendant decided to
Speaker 1: take the stand, and so the jury would have heard
Speaker 1: about these lies and frauds as a basis for impeaching
Speaker 1: his truthful character as a witness, And given that as
Speaker 1: part of the record, I think that's an additional reason
Speaker 1: why a court may be hesitant to or may not
Speaker 1: find a basis for a reversal here. Now, so the
Speaker 1: defense says, tell me if this will be considered at all.
Speaker 1: The defense says that once all that evidence of his
Speaker 1: financial crimes came in, he had no choice but to
Speaker 1: take the stand and rebut it as best he could.
Speaker 1: That was the calculus that they made. But he could
Speaker 1: have remained silenced and held the government to its burden
Speaker 1: of proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he did commit
Speaker 1: the crime and preserve the issue more cleanly for appeal
Speaker 1: on the judge's ruling to permit the other act evidence
Speaker 1: to come in to prove motive. Once he took the stand,
Speaker 1: I think the argument on appeal becomes much harder to make.
Speaker 1: One of Murdah's lawyers, Jim Griffin, said he's confident they'll
Speaker 1: succeed on federal grounds if their appeal falls at the
Speaker 1: state level, and he based that on the state asking
Speaker 1: Murdah about why he didn't come forward and tell law
Speaker 1: enforcement where he was at the time of the kennel
Speaker 1: video after he was arrested, saying that US Supreme Court
Speaker 1: cases are clear that post arrest silence can't be used
Speaker 1: against you. Is that a convincing argument? Well, I would
Speaker 1: want to read the appellate briefs before offering a firm opinion,
Speaker 1: but my initial reaction is that I don't think the
Speaker 1: claim is that strong. It is true that prosecutors cannot
Speaker 1: comment on a defendant's silence when the defendant elects not
Speaker 1: to testify a trial, or if a defendant elects to
Speaker 1: remain silent upon arrest, but the situation is different when
Speaker 1: a defendant tells a lie before any arrest has occurred,
Speaker 1: and maintains that lie repeatedly for a period of time
Speaker 1: before any arrest. So, in other words, the case law
Speaker 1: distinguishes between pre arrest silence and post arrest silence. The
Speaker 1: case law also draws a distinction between prosecutors using a
Speaker 1: defendant's silence as substantive evidence in their case in chief
Speaker 1: and using it to impeach a defendant who testifies, and
Speaker 1: courts allow prosecutors more leeway to use statements to impeach
Speaker 1: and also give prosecutors considerably more leeway to use pre
Speaker 1: arrest silence. In the murder case, the defendant repeatedly lied
Speaker 1: about his whereabouts on the knights of the murders, specifically
Speaker 1: denying that he had been at the kennels where the
Speaker 1: murders took place, in a series of interviews with police,
Speaker 1: all of which occurred well before he was arrested and
Speaker 1: when he was not in custody, and he met with
Speaker 1: investigators several times over the course of those months, long
Speaker 1: before he was ever arrested for the murders, and I
Speaker 1: believe that the prosecution referenced those lies and noted his
Speaker 1: failure to correct them primarily when they were impeaching Murdo
Speaker 1: once he took the stand at his trial, So I
Speaker 1: think it's likely that the court would view these to
Speaker 1: be permissible uses of pre arrest statements to impeach. To
Speaker 1: the extent that the prosecution also explicitly or implicitly suggested
Speaker 1: that Murdoch should have corrected his prior statements after he
Speaker 1: was arrested. I think those comments would likely be more
Speaker 1: problematic for the prosecution and harder to defend on appeal.
Speaker 1: But I think even then, Murdo arguably opened the door
Speaker 1: to that subject when he testified that he had attempted
Speaker 1: post his arrest to reach out to prosecutors to correct
Speaker 1: his prior statement, and he's testified that they had rebuffed
Speaker 1: his efforts to communicate with them. So I would want
Speaker 1: to look carefully at the trial record to see exactly
Speaker 1: how and when these questions were asked of murder and
Speaker 1: how prosecutors used his testimony about the failure to correct
Speaker 1: in their closing. But based on what I recall about
Speaker 1: the trial, I think that the defense likely faces an
Speaker 1: uphill battle on these arguments, primarily because the defendant took
Speaker 1: the stand and because most of the statements in question
Speaker 1: happened well before he was arrested. The odds of getting
Speaker 1: a conviction like this overturned on appeal are pretty slim,
Speaker 1: aren't they. Yeah, I mean it is hard to overturn
Speaker 1: a conviction based on an evidentiary ruling, which is I
Speaker 1: think going to be one of the main bases for
Speaker 1: the appeal. As I said, it's going to be subject
Speaker 1: to harmless error review and also abusive discretion review in
Speaker 1: terms of whether or not it actually was error. I
Speaker 1: do think in the context of this case, it was
Speaker 1: necessary for the government to provide some evidence that established motive,
Speaker 1: even if it was not a perfect motive or didn't
Speaker 1: fully explain the defendant's conduct. I think the question will
Speaker 1: be in significant part about how much evidence was admitted
Speaker 1: to establish this motive. In other words, there were quite
Speaker 1: a few witnesses that went on at considerable length, and
Speaker 1: the questioning of the defendant about his financial frauds was extensive,
Speaker 1: and I could see a reviewing court looking at that
Speaker 1: record and saying this was too much or more than
Speaker 1: was necessary to establish motive. But again, there is a
Speaker 1: great deal of deference to the decisions of the trial court.
Speaker 1: Whose closest to the facts and to the trial in
Speaker 1: making those determinations. And then again there is the harmless
Speaker 1: error review as well. Thanks Jessica. That's Professor Jessica Roth
Speaker 1: of Cardozo Law School. Another member of Sam Bankman Freed's
Speaker 1: inner circle has become a prosecution witness. Former FTX engineering
Speaker 1: chief Nishad Singh pleaded guilty last week to six criminal counts,
Speaker 1: including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and a
Speaker 1: campaign finance law violation, as part of a deal to
Speaker 1: work with prosecutors against his old boss. He was the
Speaker 1: third close associate of Bankman Free to flip against him.
Speaker 1: The plea followed a revised indictment against Bankman Freed that
Speaker 1: featured four new charges and a wealth of fresh detail
Speaker 1: focused on an alleged plot to shape US crypto policy. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: a protracted struggle over Bankman Freed's bail conditions highlights the
Speaker 1: growing complexity of such matters as communication technologies evolve. Joining
Speaker 1: me as Bloomberg legal reporter Crystal Mesh SBF has already
Speaker 1: angered the judge. Tell us why there's no debate about
Speaker 1: what he actually did? That he logged onto a virtual
Speaker 1: private network in late January or early February, which the
Speaker 1: government took opposition too. He says it was to watch
Speaker 1: the NFL Conference championship games in the Super Bowl. But
Speaker 1: as others have pointed out, and the judge pointed out,
Speaker 1: these were games that were aired. You didn't need subscription
Speaker 1: to anything to watch these games, So it kind of
Speaker 1: looks weird. The judge wasn't sure, you know, wanted to
Speaker 1: know why he did this. He was definitely skeptical that
Speaker 1: he had done that. But it led to a kind
Speaker 1: of an interesting exchange between the judge and Dan Bankman
Speaker 1: Freeds lawyers, who kind of said, you know, if they
Speaker 1: don't have a TV in their house, you know, their
Speaker 1: law professors, you know, they kind of wished they had
Speaker 1: bought them a TV at Best Buy. But it kind
Speaker 1: of illustrated the kind of technological divide between the judge
Speaker 1: and you know, the defendant and judge Kaplan is well
Speaker 1: known in the courthouse in Lower Manhattan for forbidding any
Speaker 1: sort of electronics in his courtroom at all times. So
Speaker 1: very interesting exchange. So why is the judge so concerned
Speaker 1: that Bankman Freed has access to the Internet or VPN?
Speaker 1: Why I mean, what is his basic concern? So it
Speaker 1: seems the overarching concern, which is, you know, a common
Speaker 1: concern in most criminal cases, is his attempts to contact
Speaker 1: others involved, including the the receiver in the bankruptcy case,
Speaker 1: and possibly move assets around that they may not know
Speaker 1: are out there. So not clear that any of that
Speaker 1: had actually happened. But the judge nonetheless was skeptical. And
Speaker 1: what was very interesting is something you know se very
Speaker 1: often is the prosecutors had kind of come to an
Speaker 1: agreement with the defense. They said, we're happy and comfortable
Speaker 1: with these kind of restrictions. The judge said, no, this
Speaker 1: is not good enough. This guy's smarter than this, and
Speaker 1: you need to kind of rate him in more athlete.
Speaker 1: At a bail hearing in February, the judge noted that
Speaker 1: encrypted letters sent by the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scott's
Speaker 1: had only recently been ciphered. You don't think this defendant
Speaker 1: is bright enough to encrypt something without a computer, So yeah,
Speaker 1: quite a moment. At the hearing, the proposed bail package
Speaker 1: would limit him to a single monitored cell phone and
Speaker 1: a laptop, and his lawyer said that was draconian. I
Speaker 1: mean Why isn't that enough If he were in prison,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't even have that. Sure, many have argued that
Speaker 1: that's you know, this is a common restriction on people.
Speaker 1: Certainly many people involved in cryptocurrency related prosecutions and things
Speaker 1: like that have had kind of restrictions like this. So
Speaker 1: you know, many legal experts question whether really this was
Speaker 1: draconian indeed, and you know, several days later, the two
Speaker 1: sides came up when an agreement. It's going to limit
Speaker 1: him to a flip phone or a non smartphone, and
Speaker 1: then he'll be able to, you know, communicate with his
Speaker 1: lawyers in order to prepare his defense, but he's going
Speaker 1: to be kind of restricted to voice calls and text
Speaker 1: messages for the most part. What is his bail package.
Speaker 1: It's a two hundred and fifty million dollars bond, but
Speaker 1: secured by his parents' home and two other parties that
Speaker 1: we've learned the identities of last month. He didn't actually
Speaker 1: have to put up any money. Is what's called a
Speaker 1: personal recognissance bond. And you know it's only that money
Speaker 1: only comes into the scenario if he should not show
Speaker 1: up record. The prosecution and defense have jointly proposed a
Speaker 1: pair of tech consultants. What are they supposed to be doing. Yes,
Speaker 1: the judge basically suggested this during the last bail hearing.
Speaker 1: He said, well, maybe you should have somebody come in
Speaker 1: and advised me on how to structure these technical limitations
Speaker 1: on him. And they brought in a FBI agent who
Speaker 1: spent time managing a firm of special and digital forensics.
Speaker 1: They also have another digital forensics consultant for nineteen years
Speaker 1: who kind of helped authenticate so Alex Rodriguez his text
Speaker 1: message in arbitration over his alleged use of PDSUM. So
Speaker 1: they're going to advise the judge kind of on how
Speaker 1: this should go and if there are any restrictions that
Speaker 1: should be implemented. I mean, it appears that this whole
Speaker 1: thing has come to a conclusion for the most part,
Speaker 1: with the proposal that came out last week on Friday
Speaker 1: for him to use the flip phone. Is Sagan, it's
Speaker 1: the flip phone? And does he have access to a computer. Yes,
Speaker 1: he does have access to I believe a single laptop
Speaker 1: that he can He can he has to log on
Speaker 1: through a virtual private network that allow him access in
Speaker 1: certain two categories. You know, they've listed the certain things
Speaker 1: Netflix or Dash make baseball. So yeah, so he will
Speaker 1: have no lack of entertainment while he's at his parents'
Speaker 1: house with the monitoring bracelet. And when's the trial scheduled?
Speaker 1: Trial is currently scheduled to start in October. Obviously that
Speaker 1: could change at any time. I wouldn't be surprised, especially
Speaker 1: as discovery starts to come in. So now let's talk
Speaker 1: about the case more broadly. The prosecution appears to be
Speaker 1: flipping keysnesses from his inner circle. Tell us about the
Speaker 1: witnesses that have already called agreed to cooperate. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: so we had the early please of Gary Wong and
Speaker 1: Carol and Ellison were two key please that happened very early.
Speaker 1: It actually happened before we had seen him charged in private,
Speaker 1: and then they were later on field. But later this
Speaker 1: week Nichad Sing, the former engineering chief, leading guilty before
Speaker 1: Judge Kaplan and admitted that he you know, that he
Speaker 1: helped compose code that enabled the asset to be transferred
Speaker 1: to almy to research. So those are very three, very
Speaker 1: big keys to the prosecutor's case. Obviously, any single cooperator
Speaker 1: who pleads and agrees to cooperate in the criminal case
Speaker 1: is a big part of the prosecution, and it is
Speaker 1: hard for the defense to overcome. But three is going
Speaker 1: to be really a tall order for Sembec than free
Speaker 1: to fight at any trial. And tell us about the
Speaker 1: revised indictment was that the result of these please, it
Speaker 1: seems like it had added. So the initial indictment was
Speaker 1: very bare bones. Indictments only really out laid the charges
Speaker 1: against them and the elements of the charges, not really
Speaker 1: specifically what had been done that was really detailed in
Speaker 1: the SEC complaint, And this kind of was more of
Speaker 1: a comprehensive indictment that really it seemed to have taken
Speaker 1: what they learned from Ellison Wong and incorporated into the allegations.
Speaker 1: It added more allegations of fraud, more detailed allegations of
Speaker 1: the political donation scheme. So it's a much more detailed
Speaker 1: look at what the government tends to prove the trial, Chris,
Speaker 1: we've heard Bankman Freed say many times that he didn't
Speaker 1: do anything wrong. Is there any indication what his defense
Speaker 1: is going to be not so much in detail. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think you've kind of he rowed in on what
Speaker 1: we've heard from him publicly that he didn't have the
Speaker 1: intense to do anything wrong. He wasn't doing that. But
Speaker 1: what we've learned from the cooperators and the prosecutors is,
Speaker 1: you know, it's going to be hard for him to fight. Um,
Speaker 1: we are anxiously awaiting to hear, you know, some of
Speaker 1: the details of his defense. I'm pretty sure they need
Speaker 1: to start filing um pre trial motions next month so
Speaker 1: that those are going to give us an idea of
Speaker 1: how he attempts to fight as a trial. Certainly they're
Speaker 1: going to attempt to attack the credibility of the cooperators,
Speaker 1: which is a pretty common tactic in any criminal trial.
Speaker 1: But it's it's questionable as to how they're going to
Speaker 1: be able to do that and what other what other
Speaker 1: defenses were going to rely on. Has there been any
Speaker 1: talk about a plea deal with him, Not that we've
Speaker 1: heard yet. You know, certainly one would assume that first
Speaker 1: has been made or at least discussed. We've heard no
Speaker 1: reports of discussions, and he's at this point is an
Speaker 1: indicating fully intensive place to charge. So just to go
Speaker 1: back to the electronics, is the judge being stricter with
Speaker 1: him than he would another defendant who's at on bail,
Speaker 1: you know, with access to all these different kinds of devices,
Speaker 1: maybe even at home, is he being stricter with him
Speaker 1: because of his knowledge. That's hard to say. One could
Speaker 1: argue that he's certainly he's treating him kind of the
Speaker 1: way he would treat any other defendant who's kind of
Speaker 1: accused of these kind of things. But given what he
Speaker 1: said during the bail hearings, there's another level of sophistication
Speaker 1: that the judge is indicated he thinks that Sam Banks
Speaker 1: and Freed has that might make him treat him a
Speaker 1: little princely than another defendant. But again, Judge Kaplan is
Speaker 1: not exactly known for being light handed, and it's hard
Speaker 1: to say whether he is treating him any differently than
Speaker 1: he would treat another defendant, and especially when in this
Speaker 1: edition accused the beast kind of crime. Thanks so much, Chris.
Speaker 1: That's Bloomberg Legal reporter christ Mesh, and that's it for
Speaker 1: this edition of the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can
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Speaker 1: slash podcast Slash Law. I'm June Bronze and you're listening
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