The “need for speed” has become a rallying cry in the Manhattan federal prosecutor’s office over the past year, as US Attorney
News stories in 2022 about possible fraud at the exchange had sparked market panic. Customers fruitlessly tried to withdraw billions of dollars. FTX’s once-lauded co-founder
Williams and his team in the storied Southern District of New York sprang into action to investigate what would become one of the biggest financial crimes in US history, identifying more than 50 witnesses and gathering 10 million pages of documents.
On Thursday night it paid off.
The jury took only a few hours to convict Bankman-Fried of treating FTX as his personal piggy bank and transferring billions in customer assets to affiliated hedge fund Alameda Research to spend on real estate in the Bahamas, political donations and improbable investments. The 31-year-old MIT graduate now faces the possibility of decades in prison when he is sentenced in March.
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Bankman-Fried’s case was a high-pressure test of Williams’s trumpeted aim to pursue white collar prosecutions selectively and swiftly. In part, the defense team banked on prosecutors’ speed undermining their ability to put on a strong, trial-ready case. Thursday’s verdict sends a different message to the financial world.
‘Lightning Speed’
“This case moved at lightning speed,” Williams said at a press conference after the verdict. “That was not a coincidence. That was a choice.”
Williams has often said that prosecutors need to address major controversies while they’re in the public eye. In the case of FTX, customer outrage over the exchange’s collapse added to the pressure to act quickly and decisively.
Interviews with half a dozen former prosecutors, colleagues and friends of Williams and Assistant US Attorney Danielle Sassoon offer insight into how the massive prosecution came together so swiftly.
SDNY has long been the most selective and prestigious federal prosecutors’ office, with its staff hailing from top-tier law firms after graduating from Harvard, Yale and other elite law schools. Many go back to private practice after a few years, the trial experience they’ve gained at SDNY often guaranteeing them partnership and million-dollar paydays.
But assistant US attorneys work grueling hours, especially on big cases.
“You’d never hear an AUSA say, ‘I have tickets to a Yankees game and can’t stay tonight,’” said Ilan Graff, a former prosecutor in the office who worked alongside Williams. Graff currently represents FTX co-founder
‘Calculated Risk’
Williams, the first US attorney to be promoted from within the office to the top job since the 1950s, took the helm in 2021. He came into the leadership position, often referred to as Wall Street’s top cop, after a tumultuous period when the Justice Department under President
A former securities fraud prosecutor, Williams made reviving white-collar a priority along with tackling gun crime and civil rights violations. But when crypto markets began to crumble in spring of 2022, it wasn’t a sure thing that SDNY would lead the charge. US attorney’s offices in California and elsewhere were also looking at crypto cases. After FTX’s collapse, the police in the Bahamas, where the exchange was based, launched their own probe.
“SDNY took a calculated risk,” said
To tackle FTX, Williams announced the rare creation of a task force drawing prosecutors from three of the office’s often rival units to handle the emerging case. Internally, there were tensions between the securities unit and money laundering unit, which had been investigating FTX months before the collapse, over who would lead the case. Sassoon and Nicolas Roos, friends since starting at SDNY together years before, became the lead prosecutors. Roos, who often trawled social media for complaints about financial schemes, was one of the only prosecutors in the office with access to a computer tracking Treasury Department suspicious-activity reports.
“Nic has an endless appetite for working,” said Jordan Estes, who prosecuted Nikola CEO Trevor Milton with Roos in 2022.
Behind the scenes, Williams’s deputy, Andrea Griswold, was streamlining how the office handled electronic data, which has proven critical in Wall Street cases where text and chat messages have emerged as key evidence.
Bankman-Fried’s Signal chats with others at FTX, including the three major cooperating witnesses — Alameda Chief Executive Officer
Williams and Griswold’s close working relationship — they ran SDNY’s securities unit together until 2021 — also contributed to the speed of the FTX case. Colleagues described Griswold, a mother of three, as an advocate for female prosecutors and someone who thrived in the weeds of an investigation.
“Gris will sit there all night and read all the emails until she has found something that matters,” Graff said. “She will know the evidence better than anyone else in the courtroom.”
Sassoon in Action
At trial, Sassoon took center stage. A Yale Law School graduate and former US Supreme Court clerk, she led the searing two-day cross examination of Bankman-Fried.
Under Sassoon’s relentless questioning, the onetime crypto billionaire stumbled through his answers, claiming more than 140 times that he couldn’t recall certain incidents or events. She presented a seemingly endless stream of tweets and press interviews to suggest he was lying on the stand.
Roos, a Stanford Law grad and onetime debating champion, made the closing argument for the prosecution, using sarcasm and subtle humor to engage the jury.
Williams, a polished courtroom advocate himself, sat in the front row taking notes and whispering with Roos during the breaks.
Early on in the job, Williams addressed his new staff in the parking lot of Lower Manhattan’s St. Andrew’s Plaza, where SDNY has its offices. He encouraged them not to jeopardize their family lives to their jobs. According to people who were there, the father of two said he’d have a date night each week with his wife and suggested they do the same with their own partners.
During Bankman-Fried’s testimony, Williams’s wife, a New York University business school professor, sat beside him watching Sassoon in action. Behind them, Sassoon’s mother and friends were also there.
Bankman-Fried’s conviction behind them, SDNY prosecutors are far from finished with crypto. The office has fraud prosecutions against
(Updates with Ilan Graff representing FTX co-founder Gary Wang)
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Anthony Lin, Peter Jeffrey
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