Sam Bankman-Fried filed to appeal the conviction and sentence
Attorneys representing Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried have filed papers to appeal the former FTX CEO's conviction and sentence.
In an April 11 notice filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, attorney Alexandra Shapiro Banman-Fried said she intends to appeal the jury's conviction on seven felony charges and Judge Lewis Kaplan's 25-year federal prison sentence. . SBF lawyers in 2011 They plan to file an appeal at the sentencing hearing on March 28, the filing said.
The filing comes two weeks after Banman-Fried's sentencing hearing, in which Judge Kaplan also ordered $11 billion in forfeiture. On April 8, lawyers for the former FTX CEO asked a judge to approve an order allowing SBF to hold him pending his appeal at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn instead of a federal prison in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The lawsuit against Bankman-Fried and his associates began in November 2022, when cryptocurrency exchange FTX faced liquidity issues and filed for bankruptcy. SBF was held in the Bahamas – where the firm's offices were at the time – before being extradited to the US and arrested on fraud charges. A jury in November 2023 found Banman-Fried guilty of seven felony counts.
Affected crypto users seem divided over Judge Kaplan's sentencing. Many have suggested that 25 years is not long enough given the extent of the damage Banman-Fried has caused to thousands of FTX clients, while others have suggested that prison time may be an effective deterrent to the figures in place.
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The Bankman-Fried file may now go to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, where a panel of judges could either affirm the decision by the former FTX CEO in federal court or overturn the decision and set the basis for a new trial. . Shapiro's filing does not indicate why SBF is seeking an appeal.
Sentencing hearings against Bankman-Fried associates at FTX and Alameda Research — including Ryan Salame, Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang and Nishad Singh — are moving forward, with Salame's sentencing scheduled for May 28. The four individuals all pleaded guilty and accepted deals before the SBF hearing. .
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