The trial was held in absentia. What happened on the first day of the "Do Kwon case"?

Original author: Zack Guzmán

Original compilation: Frank, Foresight News

Editors note: The U.S. regulatory agency in Manhattan held a trial against Terra and its co-founder Do Kwon on Monday local time. However, Do Kwon was absent from the trial because he had been transferred to the Montenegro Foreigners Reception Center on March 23 to await the final extradition decision. trial.

The case of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) v. Do Kwon/Terra officially started in Manhattan court today. This article excerpts the opening statements of the jury, the U.S. SEC and the defense team (plus some very funny comments provided by Judge Rakoff s material).

This was also the first time I returned to the court since the SBF trial, and I found that the number of people was much smaller than in the SBF case - because although I was late, I still had a seat.

But the most obvious difference: everyone in the courtroom wore suits.

jury selection

Judge Rakoff laid down the ground rules from the beginning:

• The entire trial cycle is expected to take two weeks;

• Only a maximum of 4 words are allowed to express objections;

The only way you can make me angry is to raise objections quickly. You only need to say three words: Objection, lack of foundation. Well, maybe I can tolerate you extending it to four words.

There was some minor debate as to how to explain Do Kwons absence from the trial in person, until Judge Rakoff asked: Do you really want me to say that he was unavailable because he was overseas? That might cause confusion for the jury. guess.

The defense agreed (Do Kwon is known to have served time for forging a passport and is still in Montenegro).

Jury selection begins. As everyone learns more about the jurors, both sides take turns removing jurors (Foresight News notes that the court will randomly select jurors several times the final number required among local residents. , each candidate will be briefly informed of the background of the case, and will receive extended questions from lawyers and judges for about 30 minutes in court. Judges are looking for candidates who can view all parties neutrally, fairly and openly during the trial, and who can treat all parties in a neutral, fair and open-minded manner according to the evidence and the law. Lawyers want to select jurors who make judgments, but they also exclude candidates whose preconceived notions might be detrimental to their clients).

Initially, there were many female jurors, and eventually the first juries included 6 women and 3 men, most of whom were minorities:

Of the 3 men, one is divorced, one has a pending personal injury lawsuit, and one has a girlfriend.....None of them own cryptocurrencies, which explains why the divorce of the jurors wore NFL New York Giants jackets (Foresight News note, FTXZ once ran a commercial during the NFL Super Bowl).

Judge Rakoff joked that he was also a New York Giants fan -- Thats why I wear black, because Im in mourning. The joke, which had the entire court laughing, was just one New York sports humor joke in a trial involving a Korean company. , leaving the Korean media very confused.

Interestingly, a man who said he spent thousands of dollars on Bitcoin and Ethereum but did not invest in Terra-based tokens was still dismissed from jury service; another girl said she was a counterfeiter A juror in a case that could not convict due to lack of subjective intent, but ironically she was also dismissed from jury service.

opening statement

In his opening statement, Judge Rakoff clearly stated:

• Did Terraform Labs (TFL) misleadingly use Chai to represent Terra?

• Is TFL misinformed about why UST is pegged to the US dollar?

Both the prosecution and defense will have 30 minutes to make presentations.

The U.S. SEC went first, but their arguments were almost copy-pasted from the Department of Justice v. SBF and FTX case, especially the opening and closing remarks were almost the same word for word:

This is a case about fraud and this trial does not involve technology.

The defenses opening statement was taken directly from what Do Kwon disclosed in a previous interview: Failure does not equal fraud (extended reading Conversation with the founder of Terra: I bet everything, but this time I lost》）。

The lawyer finally strongly condemned the SECs selection of facts and ridicule of testimony, and stated that Chai did use Terra.