United States of America v. Samuel Bankman-Fried
Case 1:22-cr-00673-LAK
PF2 expert Joe Pimbley is sole expert to testify for the defense at heavily-publicized criminal trial
In October 2023 Sam Bankman-Fried (commonly known as SBF) faced several charges, including for fraud, brought by the US Department of Justice in a federal criminal trial in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, following the November 2022 collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange, FTX.
Joe Pimbley's trial testimony was covered by several media outlets, in advance of, during, and after he took the stand. Here are some examples:
Business Insider
"Sam Bankman-Fried's defense team has officially named its sole proposed expert witness: PF2 Securities' Joseph Pimbley. [...] Pimbley's testimony looks to address similar financial concerns, although he seems to be more focused on allegations from various FTX insiders about the line of credit to Alameda and the size of funds the trading firm actually took from FTX. Some diagrams in Pimbley’s disclosure statement also suggest he may speak to FTX's actual balances. Whether the jury finds this testimony compelling enough to cast reasonable doubt on Bankman-Fried's alleged guilt remains to be seen. While Pimbley may be able to poke logical holes in some details and allegations illustrated by the DOJ’s witnesses so far, it'll be difficult to overcome the emotional impact of Bankman-Fried's closest friends and former colleagues getting on the stand and saying they committed crimes with him.” (Full article here.)
Slate
"Up stepped Joseph Pimbley, a longtime financial consultant fluent in physics, software code, mathematics, and quant trades. [...] At the defense’s request, Pimbley yanked out data from FTX’s code base on Amazon Web Services, covering the lines of credit afforded to entities under Alameda Research (FTX’s sister hedge fund), FTX’s total customer-only assets, and the percentages of users who’d opted in to spot trading, margin trading, or futures trading on FTX. The veteran analyst put up custom-made charts to show 1) how Alameda’s line of credit on FTX increased from October 2021 through November 2022; 2) the customer-exclusive balances on the platform; and 3) the shares of users who’d voluntarily put up for spot and margin and futures trading. That final graph appeared to demonstrate that a lot of FTX vendors had in fact agreed to put up their deposits as collateral for other traders—although, as the prosecution later tried to point out, the relevant terms for futures trading were different from those for spot and spot margin trading. [...] Pimbley offered a dry, technically proficient, ultimately narrow story, explaining that he had done just what he was told to do." (Full article here.)
Wall Street Journal (WSJ)
"The defense’s second witness has taken the stand. He is Joseph Pimbley, an expert on databases. He is discussing extracting different data from FTX’s database, including the actual line of credit that the exchange’s sister hedge fund Alameda Research was using." (Further coverage here, subscription required.)