Disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) has allegedly proposed overly lengthy and occasionally intrusive jury selection questions for his upcoming fraud trial, according to United States Prosecutors.
“By contrast, the defendant’s proposed voir dire contains numerous unnecessary and time-consuming questions, often soliciting open-ended discussion, as well as questions that are repetitive, prejudicial, and argumentative,” a recent filing stated.
SBF Allegedly Seeks to Influence Jury Selection
In a recent court filing, the US government has raised objections to SBF’s proposed voir dire process.
US prosecutors urges the court to adopt its own voir dire process rather than SBF’s proposed one. They assert that SBF’s approach is repetitive, biased, and contentious.
“To ensure that jurors can be fair and impartial irrespective of their prior experience, whether that be, for example, exposure to press about the case, a previous incident as a crime victim, or a career in cryptocurrency.”
Read more: FTX Collapse Explained: How Sam Bankman-Fried’s Empire Fell
The prosecutors claim that SBF is seeking questions that have no relevance to jury selection.
“The defense requests numerous open-ended questions about what opinions potential jurors have formed about the case, the filing asserts, alleging that SBF also seeks clarification on whether the jurors can effectively disregard all the news they have encountered since FTX’s decline.
Tension Mounts as SBF’s Upcoming Trial Approaches
The prosecutors further explain this is unnecessary and invasive. “This is unnecessarily intrusive, and goes beyond the purpose of voir dire,” the filing states.
Following ongoing efforts by SBF and his legal team to secure a temporary release from prison to enhance preparations for his impending fraud trial, Judge Kaplan’s decision on September 13 was to deny the request for temporary release.
Furthermore, the judge informed them that SBF is not entitled to see every piece of evidence against him.
This follows the claim made by his lawyers that the addition of millions of pages of evidence by US prosecutors just weeks before the trial is unjust to SBF and impedes his ability to receive a fair trial.
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