The once-celebrated crypto prodigy Sam Bankman-Fried faced a wall of skepticism in a Manhattan courtroom as appellate judges grilled his legal team over claims that his fraud trial was fundamentally unfair.
Bankman-Fried, now 33 and serving a 25-year sentence, has sought to undo his conviction tied to the 2022 implosion of FTX — an exchange that once symbolized the cutting edge of digital finance before collapsing under what authorities called “a fraud of epic proportions.”
During arguments before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the three-judge panel zeroed in on a crucial question: even if certain evidence was excluded, did that truly distort the jury’s unanimous decision to convict him on all seven charges?
Circuit Judge Maria Araujo Kahn pressed the defense directly: “If you’re not contesting the strength of the evidence, aren’t you effectively conceding it was enough to convict?”
Bankman-Fried’s attorney, Alexandra Shapiro, countered that the trial judge’s decisions deprived jurors of key context about her client’s belief that FTX had sufficient assets to meet customer withdrawals — an omission she said tilted the entire proceeding.
Federal prosecutors pushed back hard. “Three of the four people who knew about the misused funds admitted they did it with Sam Bankman-Fried,” said Nathan Rehn, pointing to cooperating witnesses who once worked inside the crypto empire.
At the height of his fame, Bankman-Fried commanded billions, moved markets, and funded causes from political campaigns to pandemic research. But his empire crumbled as investigators revealed billions in customer funds were secretly funneled into Alameda Research, his private hedge fund, to patch mounting losses.
Despite admitting to operational blunders, Bankman-Fried has long maintained that he never intended to steal. A Manhattan jury disagreed, convicting him of two counts of fraud and five counts of conspiracy.
During sentencing earlier this year, Judge Lewis Kaplan said Bankman-Fried knew what he was doing — and simply gambled that he wouldn’t get caught.
Now serving his sentence at a low-security California prison, the fallen crypto titan won’t be eligible for release until 2044.
Meanwhile, whispers about potential political intervention linger. Reports suggest some in his inner circle have petitioned former President Donald Trump for a pardon — though no such gesture has yet materialized.
The appeals court’s tone offered little sign that Bankman-Fried’s latest gamble — this time in the legal arena — is likely to pay off.
