As the trial of FTX-founder Sam Bankman-Fried enters day three, how much stock will the jury put in esteemed financial crisis writer Michael Lewis?
Lewis, known for non-fiction classics The Big Short and Moneyball, called his latest book Going Infinite a “letter to the jury” in the high-profile trial of Bankman-Fried, who’s on the line for mass fraud and money laundering.
Internet detective Coffeezilla did God’s work by reading Lewis’ account of FTX’s downfall, calling it “hundreds of pages of Sam worship”.
Not content with his supposed non-fiction FTX tell-all, Lewis took to 60 Minutes this week to heap even more praise on the crestfallen king of crypto, calling FTX a “great business” while blaming its collapse on mean people who did a bank run on the exchange.
For the record, Bankman-Fried is accused of stealing many billions of dollars in customer funds by siphoning them through sister company Alameda Research.
Those funds, allegedly, were spent on everything from Bajan mansions to seedy political donations on both sides of the aisle.
Hopefully, the jury will stick to the facts presented to them rather than the sycophantic proselytisations of Lewis.
This actually gets to the heart of the trial. If you ask Lewis, Bankman-Fried was the victim of his own successes at too young an age. He was unable to deal with the mass fortunes passing his way, and fumbled the bag.
Did he make mistakes? Sure, says Lewis. But is he guilty of evil machinations? No way.
It’s the same narrative Bankman-Fried’s lawyers will attempt to paint to the jury and media.
Former colleague and FTX co-founder Gary Wang was having none of this narrative when he was on the stand described, where he admitted to endemic fraud prevalent in the collapsed crypto empire.
Wang's testimony continues today, rounding out the first week in one of the fraud trials of the century.