Sam Bankman-Fried's attorneys are bringing experience working on 'El Chapo' and Ghislaine Maxwell cases to the crypto exec's defense
- Sam Bankman-Fried's lawyers have experience working on big cases related to drug lord 'El Chapo' and Ghislaine Maxwell.
- Attorneys Mark Cohen and Christian Everdell are former federal prosecutors who are now partners at Cohen & Gresser.
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried's attorneys are no stranger to high-profile court cases. Christian Everdell and Mark Cohen have worked on cases involving drug lord 'El Chapo' and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The former federal prosecutors, who are now partners at Cohen & Gresser, are known for "an unflashy, roll-up-their-sleeves style to cases, with a meticulous and persistent approach to building a defense," ,the WSJ report states, citing lawyers who know the men.
Everdell was a part of the team that charged Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera while working as a federal prosecutor from 2007 to 2016. The infamous drug lord was convicted in 2019 on nearly a dozen counts related to the activities of the Sinaloa drug cartel. Meanwhile, both attorneys were part of the defense team of Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 on charges of sex trafficking.
Cohen started the boutique law firm with attorney Lawrence Gresser. Founded in 2002, Cohen & Gresser now has more than 80 lawyers and expanded offices in New York, Washington, London, and Paris.
Bankman-Fried, who is facing two counts of wire fraud and six conspiracy counts, pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court last week. Crypto exchange FTX allegedly misused billions in customer deposits for daily operations in Bankman-Fried's hedge fund Alameda Research.
The pair of attorneys navigated Bankman-Fried's tricky extradition process from the Bahamas to US custody. Later, legal counsel negotiated with US prosecutors to get their client pretrial release to his parent's Palo Alto home on a $250 million bond agreement.
The agreement, dubbed an "recognizance bond," did not require payment upfront, but a promise to comply with certain restrictions before the 30-year-old's trial in October, along with 10% of the bail amount in collateral.
Cohen previously worked in the US attorney's office in Brooklyn, where he worked on securities and business fraud cases for some time.
"He had a reputation for questioning witnesses in a way that jurors respected," lawyer Mark Kirsch told the Wall Street Journal.
FTX's stunning collapse is "one of the biggest financial frauds in American history," Damian Williams, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said after Bankman-Fried's arrest in December.
Legal counsel from New York-based firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison previously advised the dethroned exec before charges were announced. People familiar with the matter told the news outlet that there there was a conflict and Bankman-Fried was later referred to Cohen.
It's going to be a tough case for Bankman-Fried's legal team though.
Prosecutors have swiftly secured two of the Bankman-Fried's former top execs as cooperating witnesses. FTX cofounder Gary Wang and Alameda Research's former co-CEO both plead guilty and are working with investigators in the case.
"They have a mountain of paper evidence, and in fact, admissions by the defendant himself," former federal prosecutor Danya Perry told CNBC last month. "So they're not going to be in any particular rush, and they're not going to be welcoming of any sweetheart plea deal."