Key Takeaways
- Sam Bankman-Fried’s attraction criticizes the decide’s conduct throughout his fraud trial.
- The attraction argues prospects might recuperate funds, difficult the loss narrative.
Share this text
Sam Bankman-Fried, the founding father of collapsed crypto change FTX, has filed an attraction difficult his fraud conviction and 25-year jail sentence, alleging judicial bias and improper limitations on his protection.
The 102-page attraction, filed Friday by Bankman-Fried’s lawyer Alexandra A.E. Shapiro, requires a brand new trial and criticizes a number of rulings by US District Decide Lewis A. Kaplan that allegedly restricted the defendant’s means to current proof and mount an efficient protection.
“Sam Bankman-Fried was by no means presumed harmless,” Shapiro wrote within the submitting. “He was presumed responsible by the decide who presided over his trial.”
The attraction takes problem with Decide Kaplan’s resolution to stop Bankman-Fried from arguing that FTX customers had not really misplaced cash resulting from potential recoveries via chapter proceedings. Shapiro contends this ruling allowed prosecutors to current a “false narrative” of everlasting buyer losses to the jury.
Moreover, the attraction criticizes Decide Kaplan for limiting Bankman-Fried’s means to testify about counting on authorized recommendation for sure enterprise selections scrutinized by prosecutors. The submitting additionally objects to an uncommon pre-testimony deposition ordered by the decide, describing it as an “unprecedented continuing” that gave prosecutors an unfair benefit.
“The federal government thus offered a false narrative that FTX’s prospects, lenders, and traders had completely misplaced their cash,” the attraction states. “The jury was solely allowed to see half the image.”
Bankman-Fried’s authorized workforce argues that these and different rulings by Decide Kaplan created an unfair trial setting. The attraction seeks not solely a brand new trial but in addition requests that it’s carried out earlier than a unique decide, citing alleged bias in Kaplan’s courtroom conduct.
“The decide repeatedly made biting feedback undermining the protection,” Shapiro wrote, “Even deriding the defendant’s personal testimony in the course of the preview listening to and in entrance of the jury.”
The attraction additionally raises issues concerning the function of regulation agency Sullivan & Cromwell, which served as FTX’s outdoors counsel earlier than turning into its major chapter lawyer. Bankman-Fried’s workforce argues the agency improperly pushed for his resignation as CEO and basically acted as an extension of the federal government by offering data to prosecutors.
Bankman-Fried, 32, was convicted by a federal jury in November on expenses of fraud, conspiracy, and cash laundering associated to the collapse of FTX. Prosecutors alleged he orchestrated a scheme to misappropriate $8 billion in buyer funds. Decide Kaplan sentenced him to 25 years in jail in March.
The attraction represents a last-ditch effort by the previous crypto billionaire to overturn his conviction. Federal appeals usually face lengthy odds of success. Bankman-Fried has constantly maintained his innocence since expenses had been first filed following FTX’s November 2022 implosion.
A spokesman for US Lawyer Damian Williams, whose workplace prosecuted the case, declined to touch upon the attraction.
The primary of Bankman-Fried’s former associates who pleaded responsible and testified towards him, Caroline Ellison, is scheduled for sentencing on September 24, after interesting for a no-prison sentence. Ellison, who had an on-and-off romantic relationship with Bankman-Fried, was one in all three high FTX advisers to cooperate with prosecutors.
Share this text
