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Sam Bankman-Fried, the creator of FTX, has officially appealed his fraud conviction, seeking a fresh trial and alleging that the presiding judge exhibited unfair prejudice against him. In November of the previous year, a jury in New York found Bankman-Fried guilty of seven charges of fraud and conspiracy related to the downfall of his cryptocurrency exchange in November 2022. In March, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan of the Southern District of New York sentenced Bankman-Fried to 25 years' imprisonment for his offenses. In the 102-page appeal sent on Friday afternoon to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Bankman-Fried’s attorneys said that Judge Kaplan exhibited bias against the FTX founder throughout the trial, making remarks that undermined the defense and ridiculing his testimony before the jury.
“Sam Bankman-Fried was never regarded as innocent,” his attorney, Alexandra Shapiro, said in the document. “The judge who presided over his trial presumed him guilty.” After his conviction, Shapiro succeeded Bankman-Fried's trial attorneys, Mark Cohen and Christian Everdell.
The petition often underscored this issue, highlighting the judge's exclusion of specific defense arguments, testimony regarding Bankman-Fried's successful investments (such as Anthropic), and other evidence.
Bankman-Fried's attorneys alleged procedural infractions, asserting that the court-mandated an unlawful forfeiture and that Bankman-Fried was improperly denied Brady material—evidence advantageous to the defense that, if intentionally concealed, might lead to the dismissal of the case.
The trial attorneys for 32-year-old Bankman-Fried proposed a reduced sentence of 6.5 years. The government had requested a far longer sentence of 40 to 50 years in jail. Several Bankman-Fried’s closest associates, including his former girlfriend Caroline Ellison, Nishad Singh, Gary Wang, and Ryan Salame, provided testimony against him throughout his trial and admitted guilt to their respective fraud charges. In May, Salame received a 7.5-year jail term. Ellison is scheduled for sentencing later this month and has requested no incarceration. Bankman-Fried's defense and his alleged basis for appeal have significantly relied on the customer recovery accomplished by the FTX estate. Bankman-Fried has maintained that the failed exchange was never really insolvent and said that the estate team, which included turnaround CEO John J. Ray III and the prestigious legal firm Sullivan & Cromwell, compelled him to file for bankruptcy prematurely.
In his appeal, Bankman-Fried’s counsel condemned Judge Kaplan's finding prohibiting Bankman-Fried from asserting to the jury that FTX clients had not incurred actual losses since they anticipated recovering their funds via the bankruptcy proceedings. Bankman-Fried's attorney said the government thus conveyed a misleading narrative that FTX's clients, lenders, and investors had irrevocably forfeited their funds. The jury was permitted to see just a portion of the evidence. The defense team contended that the DOJ collaborated with the bankruptcy estate more intimately than permitted while using a facade of separation to obstruct Bankman-Fried from obtaining possible Brady documents. The complaint said the district court categorically declined to mandate discovery or convene a hearing to ascertain whether the Debtors and their counsel constituted an 'arm of the prosecution. '
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