On August 11, 2023, in a New York court, Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, arrived at the court and the lawyer was trying to convince the judge responsible for his fraud case Don’t jail him until trial.
Eduardo Muñoz | Reuters
The lawyer is Fortis Founder Sam Bankman-Fried filed a notice Thursday appeal He was convicted on federal fraud and conspiracy charges and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Bankman-Fried’s appeal comes two weeks after he was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Manhattan and ordered to pay $11 billion in forfeiture for a massive fraud at cryptocurrency exchange FTX and related hedge fund Alameda Research. Prosecutors said it was one of the largest financial frauds in history.
The appeal is expected to be heard by a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.
The odds of a criminal defendant’s conviction being overturned in federal court are very high, with less than 10% of appeals being overturned. If Bankman-Fried loses in the 2nd Circuit, he will have to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to accept his appeal, an even slimmer chance.
Alexandra Shapiro, the attorney who filed Bankman-Fried’s notice of appeal, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Bankman-Fried, 32, was found guilty at a trial in November of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy related to the misappropriation of about $10 billion in client funds.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan said Bankman-Fried masterminded a conspiracy that looted client funds to invest and make political contributions to Democrats and Republicans. Prosecutors said he also used the fraudulent funds for personal expenses and to repay loans from Alameda Research.
“This is a man who has the potential to do very bad things in the future,” Judge Lewis Kaplan said in sentencing Bankman-Freed.
“This is not a trivial risk at all,” Kaplan added, noting that he had never heard Bankman-Fried “express remorse for the horrific crime he committed.”
Bankman-Fried, the son of a Stanford University law professor, said FTX lost billions of dollars in customer funds due to a “liquidity crisis” or “mismanagement.”
Four other senior executives at FTX and Alameda have previously pleaded guilty.
One of them, Ryan Salame, will be sentenced by Kaplan on May 28.
A sentencing date has not yet been set for Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison; FTX head of technology Gary Wang; and FTX head of engineering Nishad Singh.
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