Absent from the trial, what happened on the first day of the "Do Kwon case" hearing?

By: Zack Guzmán

Translated by: Frank, Foresight News

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit against Do Kwon/Terra officially began today in a Manhattan court. This article excerpts the jury selection and the opening statements of both the SEC and the defense team (along with some very funny materials provided by Judge Rakoff).

This is my first time back in court since the SBF trial, and I noticed there are far fewer people compared to the SBF case - because even though I was late, there were still seats available.

The most obvious difference: everyone in the courtroom is wearing suits.

Jury Selection

Judge Rakoff established some basic rules from the start:

• The entire trial is expected to take two weeks;

• Only up to 4 words are allowed to express objections;

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

Regarding the explanation of why Do Kwon did not personally attend the trial, there was some minor debate between the two sides until Judge Rakoff asked, "Do you really want me to say he's too busy abroad to participate? This might lead the jury to speculate."

The defense agreed (it is well known that Do Kwon is serving a sentence for forging a passport and is currently in Montenegro).

The jury selection began, and as everyone learned more about the jurors, both sides took turns dismissing jurors (Foresight News note: the court will randomly select several times the final required number of potential jurors from local residents. Each candidate will be briefly informed of the case background and will undergo about 30 minutes of extended questioning by lawyers and judges in court. The judge is looking for jurors who can neutrally, fairly, and openly view all parties, make judgments based on evidence and law. Lawyers also hope to select such jurors, but they will also exclude candidates with inherent biases that may be unfavorable to their clients).

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

Among these 3 men, one is divorced, one is involved in a pending personal injury lawsuit, and one has a girlfriend... none of them own cryptocurrency, which also explains why the divorced juror was wearing a New York Giants jacket (Foresight News note: FTXZ had commercials during the NFL Super Bowl).

Judge Rakoff joked that he is also a fan of the New York Giants - "That's why I'm wearing black, because I'm mourning." This joke made the whole court laugh, but a New York sports humor segment appearing in a trial involving a Korean company left Korean media very confused.

Interestingly, a man said he spent thousands of dollars on Bitcoin and Ethereum but did not invest in Terra tokens, yet he was still rejected and did not become a juror; another woman said she was a juror in a counterfeit case that could not result in a conviction due to lack of intent, but ironically, she too was rejected and did not become a juror.

Opening Statements

In the opening statements, Judge Rakoff specifically pointed out:

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

• Did TFL mislead about the reasons UST is pegged to the dollar?

Both sides have 30 minutes for their statements.

The SEC went first, but their arguments were almost a copy-paste of the Department of Justice's case against SBF and FTX, especially the opening and closing statements were almost word for word the same:

"This is a case of fraud," "This trial does not involve technology."

The defense's opening statement was directly taken from what Do Kwon disclosed in a previous interview: "Failure does not equal fraud" (Read more: "Interview with Terra Founder: I bet it all, but this time I lost").

The lawyers also strongly condemned the SEC's selection of facts and mocking testimony, and indicated that Chai did indeed use Terra.