Key facts
- Sam Bankman-Fried's appeal to overturn his fraud conviction and 25-year sentence has been rejected by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
- The court upheld Bankman-Fried's conviction and sentence, citing a robust case against him.
- Bankman-Fried was found guilty of fraud and conspiracy charges related to the collapse of FTX.
- The appeals court rejected the defense's argument that the trial was unfair due to limited evidence.
A federal appeals court has upheld the conviction and 25-year prison sentence of cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder of the collapsed FTX exchange. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan found the government's evidence against Bankman-Fried to be robust and rejected the defense's arguments that his 2023 trial was unfair. The court stated that while Bankman-Fried publicly reassured customers, he was simultaneously using FTX funds for personal expenses, real estate, political contributions, and investments. FTX collapsed in November 2022, resulting in over $11 billion in losses for customers, investors, and lenders. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan had previously criticized Bankman-Fried's trial testimony as evasive.