Sam Bankman-Fried’s bid to overturn his criminal conviction has failed. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed his conviction on all seven counts of fraud and conspiracy Friday, along with his 25-year prison sentence.
Bankman-Fried’s defense had argued that U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan improperly excluded evidence intended to show Bankman-Fried believed FTX had sufficient funds to cover customer withdrawals. The Second Circuit rejected that argument. Three of Bankman-Fried’s former deputies, all of whom pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors, testified at trial that he directed them to use FTX customer funds to cover losses at Alameda Research, his crypto hedge fund.
The Second Circuit ruling eliminates Bankman-Fried’s primary avenue for overturning the 2023 verdict. Oral arguments before the appeals court in November 2025 drew skepticism from the bench, with Judge Barrington Parker noting “very substantial evidence of guilt” on the record.
With the appeal dismissed, a presidential pardon remains the only viable route to early release. Bankman-Fried formally filed a pardon petition with the Trump administration on June 8, per Bloomberg. The White House had already signaled the application was unlikely to succeed, reiterating there was no intention to grant clemency. The Defiant reported the filing on June 9, when FTX’s FTT token surged roughly 52% on the news.
