The SBF Trial: Ex-FTX Exec Nishad Singh Faces Cross-Examination

Nia Sing who is a former member of Sam Ban Fried's inner circle faced a cross examination from defense attorney Mark Cohen yesterday, Emily, you were back in court again. Talk to us about some of the key takeaways. Yeah, so I don't think the cross examination was quite as exciting as the day before where you had the prosecution billing uh Nisha, you know, II, I think, look what the prosecution, what the defense is obviously trying to do is um undermine the credibility of some of these witnesses. So one of the things that came up was, you know, nha making a purchase of a house just came up again and again. But I, I think generally speaking, people expected the cross examination to be a little bit more lively and a little bit more aggressive than it actually was. Iii I, I'm not sure that we came away with um nasa's credibility being seriously undermined. That's just my opinion from, from witnessing it. II, I feel like we need to have that dramatic music playing the entire time. We, we, we talked to you um but was there any drama at all? Did, did the defense pack a punch or, or land a punch as, as Coin desk has reported that they, they, they actually had a small w if you will in their cross examination of Nasha Singh, look, the defense is in a difficult position because these witnesses have already pled guilty, right? They're not claiming to be innocent. They've already pled guilty. They're already cooperating with the prosecution, with the government. They pled guilty to various crimes. So it's kind of hard to further undermine that. Like we know that they did some things that were not good. We know that they made some poor decisions. So I guess it depends on how you define packing a punch. But I would say that, you know, I, I I'm not sure that we left with any, like it's any cha any overall change in the dynamic yesterday. So basically, the FBI guy was there to talk about cell phones in extreme detail. So if you ever really wondered, you know what a cell phone is, how it works, you know, yesterday, it was very educational. So basically the reason he was there though was because he was going through basically these cell phone records to establish, you know, Sam Beman Fried being in New York. And also I think he was also establishing kind of like these cell phone communications going through New York. You know, as we know one of the charges in this case is wire fraud and we've had many lawyers on the show talking about the definition of wire fraud, wire fraud basically means that like, you know, something like a phone call or an email passed the United States. And the reason why this is important is because again, this was not a US exchange, you know, Sam was based in the Bahamas, but it's being tried in the US court. So II I my understanding this was a very detailed, I mean, he really was talking about, you know, a lot of technical stuff with, with the, you know, cell phone communications. But I think the point of it was to establish a presence in the United States. Emily, I know you can't speak for the jury, but we've heard about these really lackluster cross examinations. You've been sitting there, do the jury look interested? Does it look like they're understanding what's going on? Are they looking a little bit bored? I really can't speak for the jury at all. I mean, I can only speak for, you know, kind of myself and I will say that myself and some of the other people I've been talking to, um, who have also been watching this, you know, there definitely is a different energy I think, coming from the prosecution and the defense, maybe it's just the way that they speak. I, I don't know. But, you know, the, the prosecution comes and they're very clear and they're very forceful and, you know, it's also very clear where they're going Right. You're like, ok, I kind of understand why they're asking that question, but also just the way that they speak and the way that they look sort of like theatrical quality that makes it quite easy to follow the defense. Not so much, in my opinion that the defense is a little bit, um, can come off as a little bit meandering, it can come off as lower energy. And, um, I would, I, and, and also the defense as we discussed on the show keeps having tension with the judge over this exact issue where the judge is just kind of like, OK, can we move this on? Why are you repeating yourself? You know, so I would imagine that, yes, this is probably having an impact on at least some people in the jury when you have one side that's like, you know, pretty, pretty easy to follow on the other side. That's like a little lower energy. Well, II, I think next, uh next dramatizations are high energy. Um, you know, I think maybe, maybe the jury needs to see that as evidence that this is an exciting, uh, trial.