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Bankman-Fried’s attorneys argue that the FTX co-founder by no means acquired a good trial as he was blocked from introducing sure proof. As well as, they declare Lewis Kaplan, the presiding decide within the case, was unfairly biased in opposition to Bankman-Fried, and he ought to thus be tried once more beneath a brand new decide.
Claims Of Judicial Bias
Sam Bankman-Fried’s authorized workforce has formally filed an attraction for his conviction on seven felony counts and his 25-year jail sentence tied to the downfall of his crypto change FTX in November 2022.
In a Sept. 13 submitting in america Court docket of Appeals for the Second Circuit, SBF’s legal professionals, Alexandra A.E. Sapiro, Theodore Sampsell-Jones, and Jason A. Driscoll, filed a 102-page attraction claiming that the ex-FTX boss was “presumed responsible — earlier than he was even charged.”
“He was presumed responsible by the media,” the submitting notes. “He was presumed responsible by the FTX debtor property and its legal professionals. He was presumed responsible by federal prosecutors longing for fast headlines. And he was presumed responsible by the decide who presided over his trial.”
 
The attorneys claimed that Decide Kaplan was unfair to Bankman-Fried throughout the trial, making “biting feedback undermining the protection” and “deriding” his testimony in entrance of the jury.
Based on the Friday submitting, FTX was by no means bancrupt and truly had billions of {dollars} to reimburse affected clients regardless of the liquidity disaster that triggered the collapse.
The attraction argues that the fallen crypto star was not given the possibility to current his facet of the story — that he truly did have the cash to compensate shoppers, however with illiquid investments.
“Bankman-Fried had not misplaced or stolen all the cash, and the investments he made weren’t dangerous or silly. Most of them, like his $500 million funding in Anthropic and his funding in Solana, had been prescient,” the authorized workforce continued. “FTX confronted a liquidity disaster, not a solvency disaster.”
Bankman-Fried ought to have been allowed to argue in opposition to prosecutors, the legal professionals asserted.
“All this might have been confirmed at trial if the decide had allowed the protection proof,” as per the submitting. “The unfairness arising from the error could be summed up merely: The prosecution was allowed to current a case that was objectively false, and the protection was not permitted to rebut it.”
The protection additionally alleged that counsel for the FTX chapter property labored with the US DOJ in a way that exceeded “cooperation,” offering info as an “arm of the prosecution.”
New Trial, New Decide
FTX was one of many main crypto exchanges that out of the blue collapsed in late 2022. The preliminary liquidity crunch in the end led to proof of extreme fraud and mismanagement.
Decide Kaplan sentenced Bankman-Fried to 25 years behind bars for his crimes. A number of of the highest associates of the 32-year-old former billionaire, together with his ex-girlfriend and former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, Nishad Singh, Gary Wang, and Ryan Salame, pleaded responsible to their legal costs and testified in opposition to him throughout his trial, cooperating with authorities. Salame was sentenced to 90 months in jail in Could, whereas Ellison is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 24, and has requested for no jail time.
Decide Kaplan evidently demonstrated his dislike for Bankman-Fried all through the trial, his legal professionals contended, accusing him of “placing a thumb on the size to assist the federal government.”
“Again and again, Decide Kaplan expressed a agency perception in Bankman-Fried’s guilt, the authorized workforce indicated.
