777 CFO Took the Fifth on Whether He'd Lie About Josh Wander

AT A GLANCE

• Witness: Damien Alfalla

• Role: Former chief financial officer of 777 Partners

• Case: United States v. Joshua Wander

• Charges: Alfalla pleaded guilty to four felonies

• Plea date: October 14, 2025

• Deposition: May 6, 2026, in ING Capital LLC v. 777 Partners

• Key issue: Alfalla invoked the Fifth when asked whether he lied to prosecutors about Josh Wander

THE GOVERNMENT'S WITNESS

Every big fraud case needs an insider. Someone who was there. Someone who did the work. Someone who knows where the records are buried. And, usually, someone who has already admitted his own crimes and agreed to testify about somebody else's.

In United States v. Joshua Wander, that insider is Damien Alfalla, the former chief financial officer of 777 Partners.

The indictment names only one person besides Wander as a participant in the alleged scheme. It is Alfalla. He appears nine times.

"WANDER, Alfalla, and others acting at their direction."

According to the government, Alfalla "repeatedly apprised WANDER" that the company was running short of cash.

The indictment says Alfalla and Wander "directed the Analysts" to move money among accounts for screenshots and together "misrepresented the financial condition of 777 Partners" to preferred-equity investors.

Alfalla pleaded guilty to four felonies.

He is not on trial.

He will testify.

This is Part Eight of a series on United States v. Joshua Wander.

The last installment was about the $10 billion company the indictment leaves out.

This installment covers something the prosecution does include: the man through whom it intends to explain the enterprise's alleged fraud.

WHO HE IS

Alfalla joined 777 Partners in 2017. According to 777 investor materials, he previously served as controller at PennantPark, the New York investment firm from which Wander and Steven Pasko acquired SuttonPark two years earlier.

Before PennantPark, Alfalla worked at Bank of America, Fortress Investment Group, and CCMP Capital, formerly JPMorgan Partners. He held an accounting degree.

By 2021, he was chief financial officer of 777 Partners and of its sister company, 600 Partners, and sat on the board of both.

The borrowing reports came from his office.

The lender certificates came from his office.

The investor projections came from his office.

The SEC says he "drafted the financial slides" the government now calls fraudulent.

THE EMAIL

On September 25, 2021, the indictment says, he sent Wander an email the jury will surely see on a screen:

"Last week was obviously a good week for us... we still have a $300m+ borrowing base deficiency that needs to be addressed between now and 12/31/21... If we do not have a forbearance agreement, restructuring plan and/or have cured the deficits plus keep the lights on, then we will be forced to communicate issues to external auditors and lenders to avoid surprises that will surface in the audits."

The government reads that as proof Wander knew.

But emails possess the irritating habit of showing what the sender knew as well as what the recipient knew. Alfalla knew there was a borrowing-base deficiency exceeding $300 million. And his own words show that the problem had to be cured, restructured or placed under forbearance before it surfaced in an audit.

WHEN HE STARTED TALKING

The Semafor story about a federal investigation into 777 Partners ran on November 30, 2023.

Four days later, Alfalla emailed Wander and others about a "Department of Justice Inquiry." He said counterparties had "called me over the weekend regarding the DOJ article" and expressed concern that "banks like Goldman and others see the article and then kick us out."

Goldman closed the accounts six weeks later.

The government's records, as described in the defense filings, put Alfalla's first interview with prosecutors on May 23, 2024. That is the same month Leadenhall sued, the same month Wander and Pasko gave up control of the company.

It was six months after the investigation became public.

The defense has argued that the timing is no coincidence: the leak, the collapse, and the lawsuits put the CFO "under the spotlight and prompted his cooperation."

The government calls that "sheer speculation." Judge Oetken agreed with the government.

Chronology, however, requires no speculation.

By May 2024, Leadenhall had sued. Wander and Pasko were losing control of 777. The investigation had been public for six months.

On May 23, Alfalla sat down with prosecutors.

One may dispute why.

One cannot dispute when.

THE PLEA

Alfalla's passage through the criminal justice system was notably efficient.

On October 14, 2025, Alfalla pleaded guilty before Judge Arun Subramanian to all four counts in a felony information in United States v. Alfalla, 25 Cr. 468.

He was charged and pleaded guilty the same day under what prosecutors described as a cooperation agreement. The information charged him with participating in the alleged scheme to defraud 777's lenders and investors.

There was no arrest, bail hearing, or pretrial motion practice.

Two days later, prosecutors unsealed the indictment against Wander.

Wander was arrested.

A cooperation agreement means Alfalla's sentence depends on how useful the government finds him.

If Wander is convicted, the cooperation was valuable. If Wander is acquitted, it was worth less.

That arrangement does not prove he will lie.

It does give him something every jury understands perfectly well: an interest in pleasing the people who will report on his cooperation.

UNDER OATH IN MIAMI

What makes Alfalla unusual among cooperators is that the defense has already had him under oath.

On May 6, 2026, Alfalla gave a videotaped deposition in Miami in the civil case ING Capital LLC v. 777 Partners. ING is identified as Lender-3 in the criminal indictment. Wander's civil attorney, Alex Rossmiller of Quinn Emanuel, questioned Alfalla.

There is a small irony in how the public obtained the transcript. The government placed excerpts on the criminal docket while asking Judge Oetken to prevent Wander from conducting further depositions of its trial witnesses.

Thus the motion designed to stop the questioning preserved for public view the questioning that had already occurred.

Rossmiller asked Alfalla whether he had pleaded guilty to federal crimes in New York.

"On the advice of counsel, I'll take the Fifth."

Whether he was cooperating with the government.

The Fifth.

Whether the fact of his guilty plea was public.

The Fifth.

Whether, in any meeting with federal prosecutors, he had ever lied to them.

The Fifth.

Whether he had ever lied to them about Josh Wander.

The Fifth.

Whether he had ever told them something "technically true but misleading."

The Fifth.

Whether he had a personal bias against Wander "that would cause you to lie to hurt him."

The Fifth.

Whether it was his goal "to place blame on Josh Wander in connection with alleged fraud at 777 Partners... in order to make yourself seem less culpable."

The Fifth.

And this: "When you take the stand and testify as a witness for the government at Josh Wander's criminal trial, do you plan to tell the truth?"

"On the advice of counsel, I invoke the Fifth."

WHAT HE WOULD ANSWER

Some questions he answered.

Asked whether he had ever spoken to the news media about 777 or Wander:

"No."

Asked whether he had spoken to any reporter about an investigation:

"No."

Those questions he answered without hesitation.

Alfalla testified that Wander "controlled everything at SuttonPark" and was "in the weeds" on determining which receivables were eligible for particular credit lines.

"For the most part," Alfalla said, Wander "was the one who managed the facilities."

Asked who handled those matters when Wander was less involved, Alfalla identified "either Fred or Steve" — Fred Love, the company's in-house lawyer, and co-founder Steve Pasko — along with two other employees who gathered supporting information.

One name is absent.

Damien Alfalla.

He was the CFO.

The man whose September 2021 email said "we still have a $300m+ borrowing base deficiency." The man who, in the indictment's own words, told Wander the size of the shortfall and joined in directing the analysts who hid it.

THE QUESTIONS ABOUT HIMSELF

Did he communicate directly with Leadenhall?

The Fifth.

Did he send Leadenhall correspondence about Wander in 2022?

The Fifth.

Did he discuss using Leadenhall's money to pay the ING credit line?

The Fifth.

These were questions about what the CFO himself said to lenders while the shortfall existed.

When the questions concerned Wander's conduct, Alfalla answered. When they turned to his own communications with the lenders, he invoked the Fifth.

THE GOVERNMENT'S REACTION

A week after the deposition, the government asked Judge Oetken to bar Wander from deposing any trial witness without the court's permission.

It said the questioning was "calculated to gain information relevant to Wander's criminal case."

It noted, in a footnote, that Alfalla "answered certain questions but largely invoked his rights under the Fifth Amendment."

The defense pointed out that ING, not Wander, had scheduled the deposition.

Wander himself had already been deposed in the same civil case. The government had not objected.

And questions about whether a witness lied to prosecutors, the defense argued, went directly to "his propensity for truthfulness as well as his bias."

Judge Oetken denied the government's motion.

PERFECT HARMONY

At a July 30 conference, prosecutors sought restrictions on Wander's contact with prospective witnesses. Wander's attorney said the defense would agree without dispute as to one person:

"He's not going to reach out to the main cooperator, Damien Alfalla."

A government filing similarly refers to "cooperator Damien Alfalla, who has long been publicly identified."

For once, prosecution and defense achieve perfect harmony.

The defense calls Alfalla "the main cooperator."

The government calls him "cooperator Damien Alfalla."

Whatever else is contested, his importance is not.

WHY HE MATTERS

Collateral was allegedly pledged twice. Screenshots were allegedly altered. Reports to lenders were allegedly wrong.

Paper cannot always show who gave the order.

The indictment supplies the allegation again and again:

"At WANDER's direction."

To prove those words, the government needs a witness.

Take him away and the government is left arguing that the boss must have known.

Juries sometimes accept that. They are not required to.

Remove Alfalla and the prosecution does not necessarily lose its case. It does, however, lose the witness positioned to convert corporate acts and his own acts into personal instructions from Wander.

On who directed the alleged fraud, the government's case depends on one man.

WHAT THE JURY WILL WEIGH

They will hear Damien Alfalla.

Then they will decide whether to believe him.

He was the CFO.

He drafted the financial slides the government says were false.

He wrote the email saying the borrowing base was more than $300 million short.

He began talking to prosecutors after the company collapsed.

He pleaded guilty to four felonies.

He has not yet been sentenced. He will be sentenced after he testifies, by a judge who will hear from the prosecutors how helpful he was.

And when asked under oath whether he intended to tell the truth at Wander's trial, he invoked the Fifth Amendment.

None of that proves Damien Alfalla will lie.

None of it proves Joshua Wander is innocent.

It means something simpler.

The government's case on who gave the orders runs through a man whose own conduct is part of the alleged fraud.

The government will ask the jury to believe him.

The defense will give them reasons not to.

Then Damien Alfalla will take the stand.

And one of the central questions of the trial will be whether twelve strangers believe the man who already pleaded guilty.

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