The DOJ Aims to Bar SBF’s Expert Witnessed from Testifying

FSB is seeking to appeal witness tempering charges while the DOJ wants to exclude his expert witnesses.

On August 28th, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a motion to exclude the testimony of Sam Bankman-Fried’s expert witnesses.

According to the document, the seven experts “suffer from an array of deficiencies”, which should exclude them from the trial. The DOJ argued that some of the experts fail to provide the basis for their opinions, while the disclosures of others “fail at the most basic level to set forth the opinions of the expert.”

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The seven witnesses are Lawrence Akka, Thomas Bishop, Brian Kim, Joseph Pimbley, Bradley Smith, Peter Vinella and Andrew Di Wu.

The agency also pointed out that:

Where the defendant does disclose the expert’s opinions, the opinions are inappropriate subjects for expert testimony, lack a reliable methodology or basis in facts and data, or are irrelevant, unfairly prejudicial, and confusing to the jury.

The motion is an encouragement for the court to exclude impermissible testimony.

Currently, Bankman-Fried (or SBF) is incarcerated while awaiting trial. His bail was revoked on August 11 by Judge Lewis Kaplan based on the witness tampering charge. His legal team has been working to expand his freedoms so he may better prepare for the trial.

And on August 28th, his lawyers appealed the decision on alleged witness tampering. The lawyers argued that SBF only exercised his First Amendment rights when he shared the writing of former colleague Caroline Ellison.

The legal team stated:

It is unclear how a cooperating witness who has promised to testify against a defendant could be meaningfully threatened by nothing but their own statements being published by a reputable newspaper.

Last week, the prosecution provided an additional 4m pages of discovery, with less than six weeks to the trial.

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