My bad, of course, not sure why the defamation trial was still in my head.
SBF engaged in things like securities fraud as well, which is harder to spin into a civil thing I guess.
My bet on why they decided to go the civil route is that Trump has the money to make things right (if he will that's another thing), and SBF has nothing.
So they've just decided to go the "better for everybody" route, since, well, it's better for everybody.
Going by that logic, hasn't Trump defrauded big banks rich people have huge amounts of assets in?