SBF taking the stand in his criminal trial is “a very bad move,” as the FTX co-founder will be “skinned alive” by prosecutors, says Anthony Scaramucci.
Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried will be no match for government prosecutors, who will poke holes in his defense when he takes the stand in his criminal trial, said SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci.
In an Oct. 25 interview on CNBC’s Last Call, Scaramucci said the United States Department of Justice prosecutors will “point out all the contradictions” he believes Bankman-Fried has made, which will “add years to his sentence.”
“He’s gonna get skinned alive; there’s no way to escape. He thinks he’s going to outfox the prosecutors, but they’re very, very well experienced with this stuff.”
Scaramucci believed there’s been a “whole revision of history” on Bankman-Fried, as around a year ago he was thought of as a “congenial nerd who was going to give all his money away,” but the testimony of former FTX executives showed “there was malevolence.”
“He thought he was going to take that money, and he was so smart that he would out-trade the market and put the money back and end up as a half-a-trillionaire, but it never works like that,” he added.
In September 2022, FTX Ventures acquired a 30% stake in SkyBridge, which Scaramucci is trying to buyback from the now-bankrupt firm.
In January, he told Cointelegraph he thought Bankman-Fried was “the Mark Zuckerberg of crypto” before the allegations that the former FTX CEO misappropriated customer funds.
On CNBC, Scaramucci said he took Bankman-Fried to heads of state, which he was now “embarrassed” about, but at the time, he saw “a smart guy who was well intended.”
“He’s gonna get nailed here going on the stand,” Scaramucci added. “It’s a very bad move for him.”