Odaily News: Court documents show that SBF may need to pay expert witnesses a fee of over $1000 per hour if they testify on its behalf.

In the fraud trial scheduled for October 2nd, SBF may call upon seven expert witnesses, including Lawrence Akka, Thomas Bishop, Brian Kim, Joseph Pimbley, Bradley Smith, Peter Vinella, and Andrew Di Wu, according to a proposed list.

According to court documents filed on August 28th, some witnesses, such as former Federal Election Commission Chairman Bradley Smith, will charge SBF's legal team $1200 per hour for testifying on matters related to US campaign finance laws and donations (Cointelegraph).

Previously, a US Department of Justice inspector suggested in a filing that the expert witnesses recommended by SBF should be barred from testifying because their disclosure documents were not sufficient and their experiences may be misleading.

The Department of Justice proposes excluding the seven expert witnesses recommended by SBF, citing reasons such as exceeding the scope of their opinions, lack of details, and invalid opinions. The filing states that "veracity should be proven through acceptable written evidence and testimony from professional witnesses with firsthand information, rather than relying on expert witnesses without firsthand knowledge of the facts."