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The former ‘poster boy’ of the crypto sector was found guilty of various fraud charges, but he claims the judge’s ruling was ‘erroneous’ and ‘unbalanced’.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of bankrupt crypto platform FTX, is trying to appeal his 25-year sentence and is criticising the trial judge.
The founder – also known as SBF – was running FTX during its colossal collapse in 2022, which caused billions of dollars in cryptocurrency losses. SBF was arrested and charged with stealing billions from customers of FTX to secretly fuel his own hedge fund – Alameda. The resulting trial became one of the biggest financial fraud cases in US history.
After being found guilty of various fraud charges, Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay $11bn. As expected, his lawyers are attempting to appeal this sentence.
The appeal is focusing on US District Judge Lewis Kaplan – the judge who issued the sentence – and claims his rulings were “not just erroneous but unbalanced”, Bloomberg reports. The appeal claims Kaplan ridiculed SBF during the trial, “mocked defence counsel” and pushed the jury to make a quick verdict.
As part of the appeal, SBF is seeking a new trial with a new judge. The prosecutors behind the original case did not comment on the appeal, The New York Times reports. SBF’s 25-year sentence was significantly shorter than what prosecutors were hoping for – at one stage, he faced up to 115 years behind bars.
From rise to fall
SBF’s downfall was a serious blow for the crypto sector – he founded FTX in 2019 and gathered a positive personal reputation in the following years, being referred to in various media reports as a “poster boy” for the industry.
But in 2022, a CoinDesk article claimed the balance sheet of Alameda held billions of dollars worth of FTX’s cryptocurrency, known as FTT. After this, Binance announced that it was selling its FTT holdings.
This sparked an exodus of FTX customers that quickly spiralled out of control, causing the value of FTT to plummet. The crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy on 11 November 2022, owing billions to its top creditors.
In July of this year, FTX reached a settlement with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which saw the platform agree to pay $12.7bn to resolve its legal troubles. The regulator will not seek a monetary penalty from FTX, which means the penalties will be used to pay back FTX creditors.
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