After months of anticipation, the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried began Tuesday with the drudgery of jury resolution and a little dose of judicial advice.

The exhaust of screening questions submitted by Bankman-Fried’s exact team and Federal prosecutors, Settle on Lewis Kaplan whittled down the pool of potential jurors to about 50 candidates, twelve of whom will wait on on the trial with every other half-dozen in reserve as alternates.

Final picks will occur Wednesday morning with the 78-365 days-old Kaplan, an skilled jurist who has presided over more than one high-profile trials,  looking ahead to the trial to initiate quickly after with opening statements totaling more than an hour blended by the defense and prosecution. He expects the trial to closing roughly six weeks.

Bankman-Fried, the 31-365 days-old founder and faded CEO of disgraced crypto replace FTX, faces seven prison charges, including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and advertising and marketing and marketing and marketing campaign finance violations. Prosecutors verbalize that Bankman-Fried, customarily is named SBF, old customers’ funds for luxurious precise estate purchases and diversified prices and to prop up FTX’s tremendously stunned purchasing and selling arm, Alameda Study. If stumbled on responsible, the erstwhile, crypto wunderkind would possibly presumably exercise decades in detention heart.

In June, prosecutors separated five diversified charges that they filed after Bankman-Fried’s arrest in and extradition from the Bahamas, where FTX changed into once essentially essentially based sooner than its downfall.

SBF’s greatest anxiousness

Nonetheless Bankman-Fried has pleaded harmless to the charges, blaming FTX and Alameda’s implosion on his lack of industry trip and senior managers, including his faded lady friend and Alameda’s faded CEO Caroline Ellison. Ellison and three diversified executives from Bankman-Fried’s internal circle pleaded responsible to Federal charges earlier this 365 days and would possibly presumably likely testify for the prosecution.

“SBF’s greatest anxiousness goes to be that his faded colleagues are going to testify in opposition to him,” mentioned Howard Fischer, a partner with Moses Singer and a faded senior trial authorized official at the Securities and Replace Charge (SEC), suggested CNN. “One of these cooperation is a godsend for the prosecution,” mentioned Fischer.

Bankman-Fried’s attorneys have hinted that they’d presumably lift a so-referred to as “advice of counsel” defense that will conceal he changed into once relying on his lawyers’ advice and unaware that his actions would possibly presumably be deemed unlawful. In an declare closing weekend, Kaplan left originate the likelihood that Bankman-Fried would possibly presumably accumulate that argument, despite the reality that he mentioned that Bankman-Fried couldn’t blame FTX attorneys.

On Monday, before potential jurors’ arrival, Kaplan suggested Bankman that he had “the just to testify” in his defense, even supposing his lawyers instructed in every other case.

Bankman-Fried spent powerful of the persevering with in entrance of a laptop and speaking with his exact team. In space of the shorts and free T-shirts he most in style when FTX changed into once regarded as a pillar of the crypto replace, or the detention heart jumpsuit he wore throughout his most most up-to-date court appearance, Bankman-Fried donned a gloomy swimsuit and tie. His signature mop of curly hair changed into once trimmed instant, reportedly by every other inmate at the Metropolitan Detention Heart in Brooklyn, where he has been incarcerated since August after Kaplan revoked his bail for attempting to contact and intimidate witnesses.

Quizzing potential jurors

In Monday’s voir dire, Kaplan quizzed potential jurors about their knowledge and knowing of FTX and cryptocurrencies. One prospect mentioned they had lost money on a crypto funding, whereas every other mentioned their fiance had lost money. In every other line of questioning, Kaplan asked if any individual had a bias in opposition to the cooperating witnesses.

A replacement of the functionality jurors mentioned they had study Bankman-Fried, whereas others mentioned they had watched closing Sunday’s interview with Michael Lewis, the creator of a currently printed e book on Bankman-Fried on the CBS knowledge program “60 Minutes.” Lewis mentioned in the interview that Bankman-Fried’s account of FTX’s fall down changed into once “irritatingly difficult to disprove,” and that FTX “in actuality had a good, precise industry.” Meanwhile, every other potential juror mentioned they had realized about FTX from social media personality Joe Rogan’s podcast.

One potential juror mentioned that she changed into once getting married throughout the trial. Kaplan pushed apart her with his congratulations.