Sam Bankman-Fried is not going home. The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on June 12 denied the former FTX CEO’s bid to overturn his fraud conviction, keeping his 25-year prison sentence firmly intact.
The three-judge panel was unanimous. They described the government’s case against Bankman-Fried as, in their words, “conservatively stated, robust.”
The full weight of seven counts
Bankman-Fried was convicted in November 2023 on seven counts, including wire fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering. The charges stemmed from what prosecutors characterized as one of the largest financial frauds in recent American history.
Bankman-Fried used customer deposits held at FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange he founded, and funneled them to Alameda Research, his affiliated trading firm. Billions of dollars that customers believed were safely held on the exchange were instead deployed elsewhere, without their knowledge or consent.
