Sam Bankman-Fried has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn his fraud conviction, 25-year prison sentence and roughly $11 billion forfeiture tied to FTX.
Key Points:
- Bankman-Fried wants the Supreme Court to review his 2023 fraud conviction, 25-year sentence and roughly $11 billion forfeiture.
- His lawyers say the jury should have heard more evidence about FTX’s ability to repay customers.
- A separate pardon request remains pending, while the Senate has passed a nonbinding resolution opposing clemency.
Bankman-Fried Appeal
Bankman-Fried filed the petition Thursday, Sept. 10, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld his conviction in June. The New York Times and Bloomberg Law reported the filing, which asks the justices to review the 2023 verdict and sentence.
His lawyers argue the trial judge wrongly limited evidence that FTX and Alameda Research had enough assets to repay customers over time. They say later bankruptcy recoveries support that position. The petition calls Supreme Court review “urgently necessary” and separately argues that the roughly $11 billion forfeiture violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on excessive fines.
Federal prosecutors have rejected the idea that later repayments erase the underlying fraud. Their case focused on the unauthorized use of billions of dollars in customer funds, regardless of whether bankruptcy recoveries eventually returned money to creditors.
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FTX Legal Stakes
The Supreme Court is not required to hear the appeal, and the odds remain steep because the justices accept only a small share of petitions. Jeffrey Fisher, Bankman-Fried’s Supreme Court lawyer and a Stanford law professor, argues the jury should have been allowed to hear evidence pointing to the absence of ultimate customer losses.
The filing also runs alongside Bankman-Fried’s separate clemency effort. Justice Department records list his pardon application as pending, while President Donald Trump said earlier this year he did not plan to pardon him. In July, the Senate unanimously approved a nonbinding resolution opposing any pardon, commutation or other federal clemency.
The legal fight follows the collapse of FTX in November 2022, when a surge in withdrawals exposed a liquidity crisis and pushed the exchange into bankruptcy. A federal jury convicted Bankman-Fried on seven fraud and conspiracy counts in 2023, and the Second Circuit affirmed the judgment, including the forfeiture order, on June 12, 2026.
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