September 2026 Update
Sam Bankman-Fried Asks Supreme Court to Overturn FTX Fraud Conviction
SBF’s lawyers say he was barred from arguing customers lost nothing, and call the $11 billion forfeiture an "crushing fine."
The odds are long. The court grants and hears argument in about 1% of cases filed each term, by its own account, and review is discretionary.
Bankman-Fried’s lawyers argue the trial court should have let him show that no FTX customer lost money. There were "always more than enough assets available to repay customers (as they now have been repaid, with substantial interest)," the petition says, calling review "urgently necessary."
Bankman-Fried is exploring multiple avenues to overturn his conviction. He applied to U.S. President Donald Trump for clemency in June, and the Office of the Pardon Attorney still lists the request as pending. It is filed as a "pardon after completion of sentence," a curious category for a man with more than two decades left to serve.
That route looks no easier. Trump ruled out a pardon in January, telling the Times he would not consider it, and the Senate voted unanimously against clemency in July, a rare piece of consensus in a chamber otherwise split on crypto policy. Bankman-Fried gave nearly $40 million in the 2021-22 cycle, making him the second-largest donor to Democrats after George Soros, according to OpenSecrets.
SBF’s lawyers say he was barred from arguing customers lost nothing, and call the $11 billion forfeiture an "crushing fine."
decrypt.co
