The founder and former CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX accuses the presiding judge of bias.

After spending six months of his 25-year prison term and seeing that his competitor Changpeng Zhao of Binance landing in prison for just four months, the founder and former CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX has formally filed an appeal against his conviction.

The new defense of Sam Bankman-Fried, attorney Alexandra Shapiro, submitted the appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on 13 September 2024. The 89-page document says her client wants a new trial under another presiding.

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Bankman-Fried, who was found guilty by a New York jury in November 2023 and then sentenced in March 2024 by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan of the Southern District of New York, believes that the magistrate was biased. The crypto manager was tried for securities fraud, commodities fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy connected to the collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange in 2022.

Bankman-Fried’s attorney argues that Judge Kaplan unfairly prejudiced the case against him with "biting comments" and "derision" of her client’s testimony, which ultimately “compromised the defense.”

"Sam Bankman-Fried was never presumed innocent," Shapiro wrote in the filing, claiming the judge assumed guilt from the outset and had blocked critical defense arguments and evidence, such as statements about FTX’s successful investments in Anthropic, a rising AI startup, and Sequiola Capital, an investor firm, as well as references to the “Brady material” – a case favorable to the defense.

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The defense also cited procedural violations, accusing the judge of ordering an "unlawful" forfeiture and alleging that the deliberate withholding of the "Brady material" denied the client the opportunity to dismiss the case entirely. The document also highlights the fact that FTX’s customers would recover their funds through the bankruptcy process, therefore the jury were misled that they had lost their money for good.

“The government presented a false narrative that FTX’s customers, lenders, and investors had lost their money permanently,” the defense argued. “The jury was shown only half of the picture.”

Another serious accusation from the defense is that the Department of Justice “worked too closely” with the FTX bankruptcy estate, preventing Bankman-Fried from accessing key evidence and acting in fact as an arm of the prosecution.

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No decision has been issued yet pertaining to the appeal filing from Bankman-Fried.

The entrepreneur's girlfriend and CEO of FTX's affiliate firm Alameda Research, Caroline Ellison, is expecting to be sentenced to prison by November.

Changpeng Zhao agreed in November 2023 to resign from Binance and pay a $50 million fine as part of a guilty plea to U.S. federal charges but managed to keep the billions earned from cryptocurrency operations. He pled guilty to violating the American Bank Secrecy Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and to operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. Binance also agreed to plead guilty and to pay $4.3 billion in fines. 

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