After being found guilty of fraud and conspiracy in November 2023, the former CEO of the now-defunct FTX digital asset exchange, Sam Bankman-Fried, has filed an appeal and called for a fresh trial.
Bankman-Fried’s attorneys argue that the FTX co-founder never got a fair trial as he was blocked from introducing certain evidence. In addition, they claim Lewis Kaplan, the presiding judge in the case, was unfairly biased against Bankman-Fried, and he should thus be tried again under a new judge.
Claims Of Judicial Bias
Sam Bankman-Fried’s legal team has formally filed an appeal for his conviction on seven felony counts and his 25-year prison sentence tied to the downfall of his crypto exchange FTX in November 2022.
In a Sept. 13 filing in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, SBF’s lawyers, Alexandra A.E. Sapiro, Theodore Sampsell-Jones, and Jason A. Driscoll, filed a 102-page appeal claiming that the ex-FTX boss was “presumed guilty — before he was even charged.”
“He was presumed guilty by the media,” the filing notes. “He was presumed guilty by the FTX debtor estate and its lawyers. He was presumed guilty by federal prosecutors eager for quick headlines. And he was presumed guilty by the judge who presided over his trial.”
The attorneys claimed that Judge Kaplan was unfair to Bankman-Fried during the trial, making “biting comments undermining the defense” and “deriding” his testimony in front of the jury.
According to the Friday filing, FTX was never insolvent and actually had billions of dollars to reimburse affected customers despite the liquidity crisis that triggered the collapse.
The appeal argues that the fallen crypto star was not given the chance to present his side of the story — that he actually did have the money to compensate clients, but with illiquid investments.
“Bankman-Fried had not lost or stolen all the money, and the investments he made were not risky or stupid. Most of them, like his $500 million investment in Anthropic and his investment in Solana, were prescient,” the legal team continued. “FTX faced a liquidity crisis, not a solvency crisis.”
Bankman-Fried should have been allowed to argue against prosecutors, the lawyers asserted.
“All this could have been proven at trial if the judge had allowed the defense evidence,” as per the filing. “The prejudice arising from the error can be summed up simply: The prosecution was allowed to present a case that was objectively false, and the defense was not permitted to rebut it.”
The defense also alleged that counsel for the FTX bankruptcy estate worked with the US DOJ in a manner that exceeded “cooperation,” providing information as an “arm of the prosecution.”
New Trial, New Judge
FTX was one of the leading crypto exchanges that suddenly collapsed in late 2022. The initial liquidity crunch ultimately led to evidence of severe fraud and mismanagement.
Judge Kaplan sentenced Bankman-Fried to 25 years behind bars for his crimes. Several of the top associates of the 32-year-old former billionaire, including his ex-girlfriend and former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, Nishad Singh, Gary Wang, and Ryan Salame, pleaded guilty to their criminal charges and testified against him during his trial, cooperating with authorities. Salame was sentenced to 90 months in prison in May, while Ellison is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 24, and has requested for no jail time.
Judge Kaplan evidently demonstrated his dislike for Bankman-Fried throughout the trial, his lawyers contended, accusing him of “putting a thumb on the scale to help the government.”
“Over and over, Judge Kaplan expressed a firm belief in Bankman-Fried’s guilt, the legal team indicated.