Bankman-Fried launches dual Supreme Court and White House bid to overturn 25-year sentence

Sam Bankman-Fried’s legal team filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, arguing that a high-court review of his fraud conviction is “urgently necessary.” The filing coincides with a separate clemency application submitted to President Donald Trump in June, which remains pending before the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney. The clemency application was filed under the category of a “pardon after completion of sentence”—an unusual designation for an inmate who still has more than two decades left to serve at a federal correctional facility.

The Supreme Court historically hears only about 1% of the thousands of cases petitioned for review each term. In his petition, Bankman-Fried’s attorneys assert that his trial was fundamentally unfair because U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan prevented the defense from showing that FTX customers did not lose money. The petition claims there were “always more than enough assets available to repay customers,” noting that victims are now slated to be repaid with substantial interest.

Bankman-Fried’s political avenue appears equally constrained. In January, Trump explicitly ruled out clemency for the FTX founder in an interview with the New York Times. The political opposition is deeply bipartisan: In July, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously against granting clemency to Bankman-Fried, demonstrating a rare moment of complete consensus in a legislature otherwise deeply divided on cryptocurrency regulation.

That political pushback is underscored by Bankman-Fried’s past as a massive political donor. During the 2021–2022 election cycle, he contributed nearly $40 million to political campaigns, primarily supporting Democratic candidates. Prosecutors later alleged that some of these donations were funded using misappropriated customer money. According to data compiled by OpenSecrets, Bankman-Fried was the second-largest donor to Democrats during that cycle, trailing only billionaire George Soros.

Bankman-Fried’s legal team is also challenging the $11 billion forfeiture order imposed alongside his prison sentence, characterizing it as a “crushing fine” that violates the Eighth Amendment’s constitutional protection against excessive fines. The federal government has repeatedly rejected this framing. During trial and sentencing, prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York argued that Bankman-Fried’s unauthorized diversion of billions of dollars in customer funds to his private hedge fund, Alameda Research, constituted completed theft, regardless of whether the money was later recovered.

Prosecutors emphasized that the fraud extended far beyond customer deposits. The criminal case also encompassed $1.7 billion stolen from FTX’s equity investors and $1.3 billion from Alameda’s third-party lenders—losses that are distinct from user deposits. Bankman-Fried was convicted on seven counts of wire fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering following a month-long trial in late 2023.

The eventual repayment of FTX customers is occurring through a complex Chapter 11 bankruptcy process in Delaware, overseen by restructuring expert John J. Ray III. In October 2024, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey approved a liquidation plan projecting that 98% of creditors would receive at least 118% of their allowed claims. However, these payouts are calculated based on the dollar value of the assets in November 2022, when FTX collapsed and Bitcoin was trading at approximately $16,000. Under this structure, creditors will receive cash payouts reflecting those 2022 values, missing out on the subsequent multi-billion-dollar cryptocurrency market rally that saw Bitcoin surpass $90,000.

Bankman-Fried was arrested at his luxury apartment in the Bahamas in December 2022 and subsequently extradited to the United States. While several of his top lieutenants—including former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, FTX co-founder Gary Wang, and engineering chief Nishad Singh—pleaded guilty and cooperated with federal prosecutors, Bankman-Fried maintained his innocence and proceeded to trial. Judge Kaplan sentenced him to 25 years in prison in March 2024.

The FTX empire, which Bankman-Fried founded in 2019, disintegrated in November 2022 during a rapid liquidity crisis. Through aggressive marketing, high-profile celebrity endorsements, and naming rights for major venues—including the Miami Heat’s basketball arena—Bankman-Fried built the exchange into a powerhouse valued at $32 billion. Panic spread after industry reports revealed that Alameda Research had been utilizing billions of dollars in FTX customer deposits to cover its own speculative trading losses, real estate acquisitions, and political donations.

While SBF withdrew a motion for a new trial earlier this year, his core conviction was upheld by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in June. The Supreme Court has not yet indicated whether it will request a response from the Justice Department or schedule a conference to consider Bankman-Fried’s petition.