Dialing into tech conferences and lying his ass off wasn't necessary the wrong strategy. SBF's goal at the time wasn't "avoid jail;" it was "bail out company and course correct." He wanted to acquire a lot of large investors to save his company, and a lie-filled PR campaign was probably the best bet he had to do it. The estimated value of (tiny chance) * (stay a billionaire) versus the estimated value of (smallish chance) * (avoid prison) might have looked like a pretty good call to him.

Or, more likely, his life as he knew it was under threat and he was panicking by following the same script that always worked for him before. But it wasn't NECESSARILY the wrong call.