[dheera]

"don't recall"

I'm guessing this is largely just an ass-covering strategy to avoid giving the opposing side an upper hand. If you say "yes" to anything you might give them verbal grounds to convict you of more than they can directly find and show external evidence for.

[vkou]

> I'm guessing this is largely just an ass-covering strategy to avoid giving the opposing side an upper hand. I

It is, but it looks really, really bad to the jury.

The government needs to convince the jury of a particular version of events, in order to convict you. If you plead the fifth, and just poke holes at that version of events, you might convince the jury that the government failed to meet the standard of conviction.

If you talk and talk, and spin your own version of events (thus giving the prosecution an opportunity to poke holes in it, and show you a liar), but as soon as you're asked about something damaging to you, you clam up, it's not exactly a ringing endorsement of your innocence.

In his case, his guilt is a foregone conclusion, we have him dead to rights. His best bet is just fishing for sympathy to turn a life-time sentence into a 25-year one. His parents' best bet is to have the money that they stole from FTX not get clawed back from them.

[0cf8612b2e1e]

I naively think there is still a chance his parents get implicated for assisting the scheme.

[RationalDino]

At the very least they face significant clawbacks.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/19/sbfs-parents-sued-by-ftx-for...

[fasthands9]

Definitely - but it's still notable that he's doing this after voluntarily taking the stand.

[sieste]

I really don't understand what the big deal is with "Do you remember saying 'these precise words'?" - "No, but it sounds like something I could have said." Given how human memory works, that should be the honest answer for everything anyone ever said more than 5 minutes ago. Why does the article turn this into a major gotcha?

[RationalDino]

Saying that it sounds like something you could have said opens the floodgates to why you could have said it. In this case, "Yeah, I could have admitted to a crime" is a quick way to go to jail.

So is saying you don't recall. Which is why people don't take the stand in their own defense. But scammers like SBF make their living off of being in front of people in hopeless situations, and finding a way to convince them. So of course they want to roll the dice. Which he did.

Unfortunately for scammers like SBF, courtrooms and lawyers are well-equipped to handle most of the tricks that scammers use. So the result of their testifying is like a street tough entering a BJJ gym and learning the hard way that chokeholds actually work.

[TylerE]

Lawyering 101 is you tell your client NOT To SPECULATE. You weren’t asked if it’s the sort of thing you would say.

[mvdtnz]

You don't recall anything you said more than 5 minutes ago? Even from prepared statements in court, or in rehearsed public speaking situations, or in one-off conversations with celebrity podcast hosts? I would suggest you see a doctor because that's not normal at all.

[closewith]

I mean, there's plenty of evidence to show that we don't accurately remember what we said in all those situations. At best, we think we do.

[dheera]

> I would suggest you see a doctor because that's not normal at all.

I'd suggest they do NOT see a doctor because it would be an evolutionary advantage in court, as well as lots of other places.

It's also just all-around generally good practice to live in the present, not the past.

[mvdtnz]

> It's also just all-around generally good practice to live in the present, not the past.

Maybe not when you're testifying under oath.

[InitialLastName]

Is it better to say "I don't remember that confession" or "I confessed" under oath?

[HDThoreaun]

SBF did hundreds of celebrity podcast interviews. It is in no way surprising to not remember quotes from them. That doesn't mean it's true, but it easily could be.

[steveBK123]

Yes, not a lawyer so maybe theres some nuance here but.. I don't get taking the stand voluntarily to just say "I don't recall" endlessly?

At some point does the judge tell you to GTFO and strike all your testimony? Can they instruct the jury in some manner harmful to you as a result of your obvious malign intent? Etc..

[vkou]

> Can they instruct the jury in some manner harmful to you as a result of your obvious malign intent? Etc..

The judge doesn't need to do anything, the jury should have no problem putting two and two together on their own.

Someone who makes up an elaborate story, but can't recall any of the details when cross-examined looks guilty as sin.

[steveBK123]

Hopefully!

If SBF doesn't go down & spend time behind bars, its going to open the gates to a lot more fraud.

SBF did things that would make even the worst Wall St actors from the GFC blush. No arcane accounting/valuation rules, risk models, capital requirement arb, regulatory capture, misaligned incentives, loose prop trading rules.. letter of law vs spirit of law stuff, etc.

SBF committed the most open, direct, simple to understand version of all the fraud people imagined behind the GFC. Primarily he moved a substantial portion of customer deposits into prop trading accounts and then lost the money by trading poorly.

He literally lied about things like having insurance, seemingly didn't keep any true books & records (and asked for 7 variations of a balance sheet to find one that looked least bad).

You have emails where his dad that he hired as legal is approving transfers of customers money for uses like buying his parents a condo, lol.

[SilasX]

I remember an answer from Quora about how lawyers handle such a witness on cross-examination: They say, “well, we have this evidence from the time saying you did/said XYZ. So you’re saying you can’t think of anything that would contradict that account?”

[Clubber]

>I don't get taking the stand voluntarily to just say "I don't recall" endlessly?

He's taking the stand (which is a risk) because his lawyer asks him questions that are favorable to him. The risk comes in because the prosecutor gets to cross examine the witness, which is where all this recall stuff came from.

[asimpletune]

The main reason it’s a risk is because it allows new evidence to be introduced into the record to check his story.

Did you say X? (Yes/no/maybe) Well here’s an interview you have where you said the opposite.

Now a magazine article is part of the court record and can be weighed along with the other evidence.

[steveBK123]

But isn't it "too smart by half" kind of move? Clearly the prosecution is quite good, and clearly SBF is quite guilty.

He is going to get dragged through the mud having to respond "I dont recall" to a litany of embarrassing questions.. both because the lawyer is good and because he did lots of embarrassing things, openly..

[Clubber]

I haven't been following this specific case, so take that for what it's worth.

>He is going to get dragged through the mud having to respond "I dont recall" to a litany of embarrassing questions..

Yes, but he isn't admitting to anything, confirming anything for the prosecution, or saying anything incriminating either and that's the trap of the cross examination when taking the stand.

[beardyw]

That would be perfect ammunition for an appeal.

[0cf8612b2e1e]

Does he also have perfect recollection for the defense’s questions before he gets struck by amnesia?

[garciasn]

I agree that agreeing to be questioned and then saying you don't recall endlessly is mostly absurd.

However, you know he has gone through hours of very recent prep with his defense lawyers about the specific questions he'll be asked by the team. So, it's not exactly fair to accuse him of having perfect recall for his defense lawyer's questions and not as much for the prosecution.

[0cf8612b2e1e]

Surely the defense team would game theory the case and prepare for likely prosecution questions. Those are the hardest ones for which you need to prepare.

[beardyw]

In that case you would remember.

[efitz]

“I don’t remember” is still perjury if you can be reasonably expected to remember or if evidence can be provided that you remembered very recently.

[nextaccountic]

But memory is unreliable, specially if you're under pressure. This is seen for example when taking exams, some people might just completely forget what they were just studying

Is this really a crime?

[efitz]

Yes. If you don’t want to answer because it might be incriminating, then you have to assert your fifth amendment privileges; you can’t lie and say that you don’t remember.

[steveBK123]

SBF seems like the kind of big mouthed overconfidently stupid smart person to walk right into that. He certainly has a lot of content out there on the public record for them to cross check his recollections against!

[jowea]

Do people get prosecuted for perjury after getting a guilty sentence like that? I imagined the most important consequence of saying "I don't remember" is whether the jury finds you credible.

[vecter]

Interesting. How would someone prove this?

[pixl97]

By coming at the question from another direction step by step leading the person into a trap.

[NotYourLawyer]

Wait for him to publicly say something stupid about it that admits guilt.

[elil17]

Well he said the things and they have hard proof for all of it - whether or not he remembers doesn't change that.

[digging]

If he simply doesn't want to talk about something, isn't he entitled to take the 5th and just refuse to answer? Saying he doesn't recall is a gambit because it's an obvious lie but I think he's hoping it's one we're so used to hearing that it sounds less incriminating than refusing to answer.

[NegativeK]

I don't believe you can selectively take the 5th.

As in once you waive your right to the 5th and take the stand, you have to answer all of the opposing side's questions truthfully.

(Not a lawyer.)

[dheera]

> you have to answer all of the opposing side's questions truthfully

What if you don't know the answer, are only probabilistically sure of the answer, or the answer isn't a simple yes or no?

I see lots of courtroom videos and congress videos where the idiot keeps pressing for a "yes or no" but the reality of the universe is that lots of things are more nuisanced than just a yes or no.

[0cf8612b2e1e]

Not a lawyer, but I am not sure that is entirely true.

Theoretically, if on the stand they asked SBF if he stole candy from the baby next door, I think he could take the fifth with regards to that questioning because it is for a different crime?