Ian McGinley Interviewed on CoinDesk re: Bankman-Fried Case
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Akin Gump white collar defense and government investigations partner Ian McGinley was a guest on CoinDesk (watch the full segment here), his appearance reported by CoinDesk in “Ellison and Wang Will Be ‘Game Changers' in Bankman-Fried's Trial, Lawyer Says.”
The interview concerned the government’s case against Sam Bankman-Fried, the one-time FTX CEO now facing multiple criminal charges for wire and securities fraud, money laundering and campaign-finance violations.
McGinley, who served for more than a decade as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York (SDNY), where he was Co-Chief of the Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit, and a member of the Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force, discussed guilty pleas made by FTX’s co-founder and another company’s CEO.
Said McGinley, “Now you have two people—two insiders—who were with him, presumably during all of the pivotal moments at stake in the case saying ‘We conspired with others, presumably Sam Bankman-Fried, and we intentionally did something wrong’.”
The two “insiders” are said to be cooperating with investigators in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the SDNY. In that regard, McGinley noted the additional challenges facing Bankman-Fried as a result: “When you get two cooperating witnesses, it’s much harder to make that case before a jury.”