Danielle R. Sassoon

As an Assistant United States Attorney, Danielle R. Sassoon developed the prosecution record through examinations of Adam Yedidia, Caroline Ellison, Shamel Medrano, and Can Sun, then cross-examined Samuel Bankman-Fried and gave the rebuttal closing. Her questioning repeatedly joined witness accounts to FTX website materials, internal spreadsheets, messages, corporate records, and public statements, focusing on how customer deposits reached Alameda, how liabilities were recorded, and what senior participants understood about the resulting shortfall.

With Yedidia on Day 2 and Day 3, Sassoon elicited the mechanics of customer fiat deposits, the correction that exposed an approximately $8 billion liability, Bankman-Fried's response to concerns about that debt, and Signal auto-deletion. Her redirect separated Yedidia's earlier knowledge of the liability from his later understanding that customer funds had been spent and revisited the context of Bankman-Fried's warning that FTX was not invulnerable. Through Ellison on Day 5, Day 6, and Day 7, Sassoon used financial records and public statements to trace Alameda's special access to FTX assets, loan repayments with customer money, lender balance sheets, disappearing communications, and crisis messaging. Her redirect addressed defense challenges to Ellison's cooperation and disputed financial presentations.

Sassoon also used Medrano's testimony to present stipulated Twitter records, corporate documents, deletion information, and private November 2022 communications. Her examination of Sun focused on customer-asset protections, Alameda's special account treatment, documented founder loans, and his conclusion that no legal justification supported the missing customer funds, adding legal and documentary context to the witness accounts.

During the Day 14 admissibility hearing, Sassoon tested Bankman-Fried's claim that lawyer-developed policies and agreements authorized auto-deletion, North Dimension payment processing, Alameda's account privileges, customer-fund borrowing, and loans. When his jury testimony continued on Day 16 and Day 17, she used public statements, private messages, account records, spreadsheets, emails, and chats to challenge his asserted separation from Alameda, his account of when he learned the size of the fiat liability, and his explanations of preferential Bahamian withdrawals and FTX's liquidity assurances.

In rebuttal on Day 19, Sassoon argued that the documents and testimony undercut the defense's good-faith account. She pointed to spreadsheets concerning Alameda's special credit and multibillion-dollar liability, argued that later fundraising and public assurances supported knowing participation even under the defense's timing account, and invoked conscious avoidance as an alternative basis for knowledge. She also acknowledged that the government alone bore the burden beyond a reasonable doubt.