FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has formally appealed his fraud conviction, requesting a new trial and accusing the judge overseeing his case of being unfairly biased against him.
Last November, a New York jury convicted Bankman-Fried of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy tied to the collapse of his crypto exchange in November 2022. In March, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan of the Southern District of New York (SDNY) sentenced Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison for his crimes.
In the 102-page appeal filed Friday afternoon in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers argued Judge Kaplan was unfair to the FTX founder throughout the trial, making “biting comments undermining the defense” and “deriding” his testimony in front of the jury.
“Sam Bankman-Fried was never presumed innocent,” his lawyer, Alexandra Shapiro wrote in the filing. “He was presumed guilty by the judge who presided over his trial.” Shapiro took over from Bankman-Fried’s trial lawyers, Mark Cohen and Christian Everdell, after his conviction.
The filing emphasized this point throughout, pointing to the judge’s blocking of certain defense arguments, testimony about Bankman-Fried’s well-performing investments (such as Anthropic), pieces of evidence
Bankman-Fried’s lawyers also charged procedural violations, saying the judge ordered an “unlawful” forfeiture and “Bankman-Fried was erroneously deprived of Brady material” – evidence that would have favored the defense which, if deliberately withheld, could result in the case being thrown out.
The 32-year-old Bankman-Fried’s trial lawyers had suggested a lighter sentence of 6.5 years. The government had sought a much heftier 40-50 years in prison.
Several of Bankman-Fried’s closest friends and colleagues – including his ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison, Nishad Singh, Gary Wang, and Ryan Salame – testified against him during his trial, and pleaded guilty to their own counts of fraud. Salame was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison in May. Ellison is set to be sentenced later this month, and has asked for no jail time.
Bankman-Fried’s defense, as well as his supposed grounds for appeal, have heavily rested on the customer recovery achieved by the FTX estate. Bankman-Fried has insisted that the collapsed exchange was never actually insolvent, and claimed that he was pushed to file for bankruptcy prematurely by the estate team, including turnaround CEO John J. Ray III and white-shoe law firm Sullivan & Cromwell.
In his appeal, Bankman-Fried’s attorney criticized a ruling from Judge Kaplan that blocked Bankman-Fried from claiming to the jury that FTX customers had not actually lost money, because they were expected to get it back in the bankruptcy process.
“The government thus presented a false narrative that FTX’s customers, lenders, and investors had permanently lost their money,” Bankman-Fried’s lawyer wrote. “The jury was only allowed to see half the picture.”
The defense team also alleged the DOJ worked with the bankruptcy estate more closely than was allowed, but used the veneer of distance to block Bankman-Fried from accessing potential Brady materials.
“The district court summarily refused to order discovery, or even a hearing to determine whether the Debtors and their counsel were an ‘arm of the prosecution,'” the filing said.
Nikhilesh De contributed reporting.
UPDATE (Sept. 13, 2024, 20:45 UTC): Adds additional information and link to filing.