Sam Bankman-Fried Requests New Trial in FTX Crypto Fraud Case
4 57While serving his 25-year prison sentence, "convicted former cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried on Tuesday requested a new federal trial," reports Courthouse News, "based on what he says is newly discovered evidence concerning his company's solvency and its ability to repay all FTX customers for what prosecutors portrayed as the looting of $8 billion of his customers' money..." Bankman-Fried says evidence disclosed since his trial disproves prosecutors' case about Bankman-Fried's hedge fund running a multi-billion deficit of FTX customer funds, and instead shows that FTX always had sufficient assets to repay the cryptocurrency platform's customer deposits in full. "What it faced was a short-term liquidity crisis caused by a run on the exchange, not insolvency," he wrote...
Bankman-Fried also accuses the Department of Justice of coercing a guilty plea and cooperation deal from Nishad Singh — a close friend of Bankman-Fried's younger brother — who testified at trial as a cooperating witness... Bankman-Fried says in the motion that prior to being pressured into a guilty plea, Singh's initial proffer to investigators "contradicted key parts of the government's version of events. But following threats from the government, Mr. Singh changed his proffers to fit the government's narrative and pleaded guilty to charges carrying up to 75 years in prison, with a promise from the prosecution that it would recommend little or no jail time if it concluded that his assistance in prosecuting Mr. Bankman-Fried was 'substantial,'" he wrote in the petition...
Additionally, Bankman-Fried requested that U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over his 2023 trial, recuse himself from ruling on this motion, "because of the manifest prejudice he has demonstrated towards Mr. Bankman-Fried."
"Bankman-Fried's mother, Stanford Law School professor Barbara Fried, filed his self-represented bid for a new trial on his behalf in Manhattan federal court..."
4 comments
Give hime another 25 years instead (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Quakeulf ( 2650167 ) on Sunday February 15, 2026 @04:38PM (#65990844)
That's the only way there can be some justice.
Re:FTX customers came out ahead, didn't they? (Score: 5, Interesting)
by thosdot ( 659245 ) on Sunday February 15, 2026 @06:39PM (#65991002)
Amazing he finds the money after he figures out he's not getting out. Interesting you trust criminals.
That's not how it worked. When FTX was declared insolvent, its affairs were handed over to an independent party to try to work out what went on, where the money went, and whether they could recoup investor's funds. By all accounts, FTX and Alameda had very poor or no book-keeping, and it took Some Time for all the various investments and accounts that they had to come to light.
TLDR: It was an independent third party who retrieved the funds that Bankman-Fried said were there all along.
Re:FTX customers came out ahead, didn't they? (Score: 5, Informative)
by bloodhawk ( 813939 ) on Sunday February 15, 2026 @07:04PM (#65991030)
to be clear. What was recovered was NOT all the crypto. What happened was that between the insolvency and refund of 120% the value of the remaining crypto skyrocketted enough to refund everyone. This was not a vindication and still saw the investors get significantly less than the current value of the crypto.
They gave him 25 years for making.... (Score: 5, Interesting)
by PubJeezy ( 10299395 ) on Sunday February 15, 2026 @06:32PM (#65990990)
They gave him 25 years for making powerful people look stupid. At the same time they were sentencing him to 25 years for stealing money from his financial backers, CZ of Binance had admitted to deliberately laundering money for drug cartels and he was only sentenced to 4 months. CZ helped weapons dealers and human traffickers. Got 4 months. AND THEN GOT A FULL PARDON.
I believe that there's a constitutional argument that SBF's sentence is cruel and unusual in a world where CZ gets 4 months.