Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was convicted guilty of fraud and conspiracy in November. He has since appealed, requesting a new trial.
In addition to arguing that the majority of the case was biased against him, Bankman-Fried’s legal team claims that the presiding judge, Lewis Kaplan, was not impartial. Bankman-Fried is currently serving a 25-year jail sentence and maintains that the evidence presented during the trial was unfairly limited.
The attorneys for Bankman-Fried claimed in their appeal to the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals that Judge Kaplan was undermining the trial’s fairness by siding with the prosecution. The judge hurried the jury toward a verdict without giving them enough time to carefully evaluate the evidence; they even dubbed it a “sentence first, verdict afterwards” kind of situation.
However, the defense lawyers contend that Kaplan intentionally cultivated a biased environment that distorted the jury’s viewpoint, criticizing defense counsel and showing skepticism for Sam Bankman-Fried’s testimony at times.
The appeal highlights even more how Bankman-Fried’s story has changed after the trial. According to his legal team, there is information that suggests FTX had significant assets available to pay back clients at the time of its collapse and was not bankrupt.
They argue that during the trial, this new information was not given enough consideration, leading to an unfair conviction predicated on a “false narrative” that portrayed Bankman-Fried as a thief.
Following FTX’s collapse in late 2022, which shook the cryptocurrency market and caused a spike in customer withdrawals, the company went bankrupt. Bankman-Fried was accused by prosecutors of organizing a plot to steal billions of dollars from customer accounts in order to pay for conspicuous political contributions and personal expenses.
A month-long trial that drew widespread attention concluded with the jury finding him guilty of multiple counts, including money laundering and fraud.
His case has been compared to some of the largest financial scams in American history. Caroline Ellison, the former chief executive of Alameda Research, was one of the key witnesses for the prosecution at the trial who had turned against him.
The ongoing legal disputes and regulatory scrutiny have a significant impact on the bitcoin environment, and the consequences of FTX’s bankruptcy are still being felt.
The appeals process is designed to be convoluted and challenging. The legal team representing Bankman-Fried is arguing for a new trial before a different judge, claiming that the first trial was fundamentally flawed.
However, overturning a federal conviction is a notoriously difficult process; historically, fewer than 10% of such appeals are successful.
