SBF Seeks New Trial: Lawyers Argue FTX’s Founder Was ‘Blocked’ From Fair Defense
Ahead of his Tuesday attraction listening to, Sam Bankman-Fried’s attorneys have claimed that the FTX co-founder was unfairly convicted and was not allowed to inform his full story throughout his 2023 trial.
FTX Founder Claims Unfair Trial
On Tuesday, the authorized group of FTX’s co-founder and former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), is about to attraction his fraud conviction and 25-year sentence in a listening to on the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.
According to a Bloomberg report, SBF’s attorneys have claimed in a beforehand filed transient that the crypto-exchange founder was wrongly convicted and was by no means given a good probability to current his protection resulting from strain from the media and prosecutors. “Sam Bankman-Fried was by no means presumed harmless,” his attorneys reportedly argued within the transient. “He was presumed responsible — earlier than he was even charged.”
In November 2023, Bankman-Fried was discovered responsible of seven legal counts, together with fraud and conspiracy. He was later sentenced to 25 years in jail and ordered to pay again $11 billion to FTX prospects.
His authorized group, led by Alexandra Shapiro, is allegedly specializing in New York Judge Lewis Kaplan, whom they’ve accused of “repeatedly placing a thumb on the dimensions to assist the federal government and thwart the protection.”
The former crypto government’s attorneys argued within the attraction transient that the decide had “pressed jurors into a fast verdict,” and “frequently ridiculed Bankman-Fried, criticized his demeanor, and signaled his disbelief of Bankman-Fried’s testimony.”
They highlighted an occasion when Judge Kaplan allegedly referred to as SBF’s testimony that he didn’t run FTX’s sister hedge fund, Alameda Research, after stepping down as CEO, “a joke.”
As a consequence, Shapiro is predicted to argue that the New York decide “wrongly blocked Bankman-Fried from telling the jury that FTX had sufficient belongings to repay alternate prospects.” Meanwhile, prosecutors have been allowed to assert SBF had stolen billions of {dollars} from prospects, which “compelled” FTX out of business.
Since the trial, the disgraced crypto alternate’s co-founder has maintained that the corporate was by no means bancrupt. As reported by Bitcoinist, Bankman-Fried lately shared a doc arguing that “the disaster FTX confronted in November 2022 was a liquidity disaster, i.e., a sudden scarcity of money,” affirming that the corporate “was by no means bankrupt.”
His group can also be anticipated to assert that Bankman-Fried didn’t intend to defraud prospects, that prosecutors got an unfair benefit, and that Judge Kaplan ought to have allowed him to testify that he had adopted FTX attorneys “in good religion.”
New Trial Or Presidential Pardon?
Bankman-Fried’s attraction has requested a brand new trial with a special decide. Nonetheless, the previous CEO has additionally been looking for a pardon from US President Donald Trump as a part of his makes an attempt for an early launch.
After January’s pardon of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, SBF’s mother and father have reportedly been exploring paths to safe a presidential pardon for his or her son. In a February interview, he slammed the Biden Administration, arguing that his conviction was a part of the earlier authorities’s crackdown on the trade. He additionally shared his hope that President Trump would grant him a pardon.
Notably, on October 23, the White House introduced that Trump had pardoned Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, two years after pleading responsible. The White House’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, affirmed that the US President had “exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration of their battle on cryptocurrency.”
Since then, hypothesis a couple of potential pardon to Bankman-Fried has elevated, with the percentages on betting markets akin to Polymarket spiking to fifteen% after Zhao’s pardon. However, many trade gamers consider that the actual possibilities of a pardon are low.
Lawyer and CLO at Variant, Jake Chervinsky, beforehand affirmed that he can be “actually shocked if SBF will get a pardon,” as SBF and CZ are “not comparable in any respect.” Chervinsky famous that “SBF was a Democratic mega-donor earlier than FTX collapsed and he went to jail bankrupt. His title is half punch line half curse phrase in DC. Not a single severe particular person desires this.”
