Sam Bankman-Fried needs favor from Trump after failed appeal

The last real shot FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried had at undoing his fraud conviction just collapsed. A three-judge panel of the powerful, Second US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan upheld his conviction and 25-year prison sentence on Friday.

The panel flatly rejected his claim that he never got a fair trial.

The evidence against him, the judges wrote in a 42-page opinion, was “conservatively stated” and “robust.”

Bankman-Fried’s only remaining possibility to escape prison before the 2040s has narrowed to a presidential pardon.

Judges Barrington Parker, Eunice Lee, and Maria Araújo Kahn heard oral arguments in November 2025. Bankman-Fried’s appellate lawyer, Alexandra Shapiro, argued that US District Judge Lewis Kaplan hamstrung Bankman-Fried’s defense.

The appeal failed to convince the panel.

Bankman-Fried’s convictions and prison sentence sustained

In November 2023, a Manhattan jury convicted Bankman-Fried on two counts of fraud and five counts of conspiracy.

Kaplan duly sentenced him to prison in March 2024, delivering a 25-year sentence and ordering an $11 billion forfeiture.

Read more: Sam Bankman-Fried begs Trump for pardon, gets bipartisan ‘No’

The court found that FTX customers lost more than $8 billion. Investors lost another $1.7 billion, and Alameda lenders lost $1.3 billion.

Three of his four closest deputies pleaded guilty and cooperated with the US government during his prosecution. They testified that Bankman-Fried directed them to drain customer deposits to plug holes at Alameda, his hedge fund. 

Prosecutors called it a “fraud of epic proportions.”

Bankman-Fried has chased any possibility of a prison exit for over a year. As Protos has documented, he’s repeatedly asked Donald Trump for a pardon and launched a social media campaign to praise Trump’s policies. 

Unfortunately, the White House and Trump have acknowledged his requests and publicly declined. His legal appeals are now exhausted, as well, unless he wants to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Bankman-Fried’s projected prison release date is 2044.

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