FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is asking for a retrial

Lawyers filed papers with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals asking a three-judge panel to overturn his conviction and assign the case to a new judge for retrial, saying the trial judge “imposed a draconian one-quarter sentence century of this first-time, non-violent offender” after they claim he rushed the jury to a one-day verdict to end a complex four-week trial.

“Sam Bankman-Fried was never presumed innocent. He was presumed guilty – even before he was charged. He was allegedly blamed by the media. He was presumed guilty by the FTX debtor’s estate and its lawyers. He was presumed guilty by federal prosecutors eager for quick headlines. And he was presumed guilty by the judge who presided over his trial,” the lawyers wrote.

They said the passage of time has cast Bankman-Fried in a better light.

“From day one, the prevailing narrative—originally conceived by the lawyers who took over FTX, quickly adopted by their contacts in the U.S. Attorney’s office—was that Bankman-Fried stole billions of dollars in client funds, drove FTX into insolvency, and caused billions in losses,” the lawyer said.

“Now, almost two years later, a very different picture emerges – one that confirms that FTX was never insolvent and in fact had assets worth billions to repay its customers. But the jury at Bankman-Fried’s trial never got to see that image,” they added.

Bankman-Fried, 32, was convicted last November of fraud and conspiracy, a year after his companies collapsed into bankruptcy as investors rushed to withdraw funds. A jury concluded that some of their money was improperly spent on real estate, investments, celebrity endorsements, political contributions and lavish lifestyles.

At its peak, FTX was treated as a pioneer and darling of the emerging cryptocurrency industry, with a Super Bowl commercial, Bankman-Fried’s testimony before Congress, and endorsements from celebrities like quarterback Tom Brady and comedian Larry David.

Bankman-Fried was arrested in December 2022 following his extradition from the Bahamas, just weeks after his company filed for bankruptcy and days after some of its former executives began cooperating with federal prosecutors. Some of them testified against him at trial.

He initially remained on strict bail at his parents’ home in Palo Alto, Calif., but Manhattan Judge Lewis A. Kaplan revoked his bail shortly before the trial after concluding that Bankman-Fried was trying to influence likely witnesses, including an ex-girlfriend who served as an executive at Alameda Research, a crypto hedge fund.

The fallen mogul is serving a 25-year sentence after being convicted in March of what a prosecutor once described as one of the biggest financial frauds in US history.

A spokesman for the prosecutor’s office declined to comment Friday.