Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, arrives in court as lawyers seek to convince the judge overseeing his fraud case not to jail him before trial, in a New York court, August 11, 2023.
Eduardo Munoz | Reuters
An attorney for FTX founder Sam Bankman Fried on Thursday filed a notice of appeal from his federal fraud and conspiracy conviction and 25-year prison sentence.
Bankman-Fried's appeal came two weeks after he was sentenced in US District Court in Manhattan and ordered to pay $11 billion in forfeiture for 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, which was expected, will be heard by a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Manhattan.
Criminal defendants face very long odds of having their convictions overturned in federal court, and win overturns in less than 10% of appeals. If Bankman-Fried loses in the 2nd Circuit, he will have to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to accept his appeal, which is a longer process.
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 convicted at trial in November of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy related to the embezzlement of about $10 billion in customer funds.
The Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office said Bankman-Fried oversaw a conspiracy that plundered clients' funds to make investments and fund political donations to Democrats and Republicans. He also used the embezzled funds for personal expenses and to repay loans taken out by Alameda Research, prosecutors said.
When sentencing Bankman-Fried, Judge Lewis Kaplan said: “There is a risk that this man will be in a position to do something very bad in the future.”
“It's not a trivial risk at all,” Kaplan added, noting that he had never heard “a word of remorse for committing terrible crimes” from Bankman-Fried.
Bankman-Fried, the son of Stanford law professors, suggested that FTX lost billions of dollars in client money due to a “liquidity crisis” or “mismanagement.”
Four other top executives at FTX and Alameda have previously pleaded guilty.
Kaplan is scheduled to sentence one of them, Rayan Salama, on May 28.
Sentencing dates have not yet been set for Caroline Ellison, who was Alameda's CEO; FTX Chief Technology Officer Gary Wang; and Nishad Singh, who was head of engineering at FTX.
