by Pam Martens and Russ Martens at Wall Street on Parade
Last week the New York Times did a puff piece on the judge that will be presiding over the Sam Bankman-Fried criminal trial in the Federal courthouse in lower Manhattan. The judge is Ronnie Abrams. The narrative at the New York Times is that Abrams’ “husband, Greg Andres, is an accomplished former Brooklyn federal prosecutor….”
Our take is that Greg Andres is part of Ronnie Abrams’ immediate household and a law partner of Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, a law firm that has problematic ties to Bankman-Fried’s bankrupt crypto exchange, FTX, and another crypto firm it became enmeshed with, BlockFi, which is also now in bankruptcy.
According to the Davis Polk website, the following occurred in July of this year:
“Davis Polk advised BlockFi, Inc. as borrower under a $400 million loan facility provided by West Realm Shires Inc, an affiliate of FTX-US. Davis Polk also advised BlockFi, Inc. in connection with an option for FTX-US to acquire BlockFi at a variable price of up to $240 million based on performance triggers…
“FTX is a leading cryptocurrency exchange specializing in derivatives and leveraged products. Founded in 2018 by Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX offers a range of trading products, including derivatives, options, volatility products and leveraged tokens.
“The Davis Polk corporate team included partner Michael Davis and associates Brian Lee and Malik M. Khalil. The finance team included partners Meyer C. Dworkin and Christopher Nairn-Kim, counsel Erika D. White and associate Matthew Vallade. Partners Lucy W. Farr and Corey M. Goodman and associate Yixuan Long provided tax advice. All members of the Davis Polk team are based in the New York office.”
At the very time that Davis Polk wrote that…
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