"Well that was insane." That was the first update my colleague Leo Schwartz sent to our team upon leaving the Manhattan courthouse where Sam Bankman-Fried took the stand. A short time later, Leo filed an account of the day's testimony and it was apparent what he was talking about.
A defendant taking the stand is always a risky proposition since it opens the door for them to incriminate themselves on cross-examination. The testimony Bankman-Fried offered on Thursday was only a dry run since the judge had dismissed the jury (part of an unusual arrangement to resolve some of the lawyers' expected wrangling over admissible evidence before the jury's return on Friday), but it was more than enough to show he should have heeded that risk. The one-time FTX mogul was a hot mess on the stand, per Leo:
