FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s gamble that the U.S.’s authorized system will set him free three years after his empire collapsed could also be about to hit its finish.

The Second Circuit Court docket of Appeals will hear arguments in Bankman-Fried’s effort to enchantment his conviction and 25-year jail sentence two years and two days after a jury unanimously discovered him responsible on seven completely different conspiracy and fraud prices.

The Nov. 4 listening to will allot each Southern District of New York prosecutors t, now run by former Securities and Change Fee Chair Jay Clayton, and Bankman-Fried’s new protection workforce headed by main white collar appellate legal professional Alexandra Shapiro 10 minutes apiece to current their arguments. The judges on the panel might ask their very own questions through the continuing to make clear particulars.

The listening to won’t relitigate the costs themselves, however moderately, whether or not the trial was performed appropriately.

Bankman-Fried, the appellant, desires a brand new trial with a brand new choose, in accordance with his workforce’s opening temporary, filed in September 2024. His workforce argued that District Choose Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw Bankman-Fried’s trial, was biased towards the one-time FTX CEO and made unfair feedback all through the trial which undermined the protection. He has a excessive bar to clear, in accordance with attorneys who mentioned the method with CoinDesk.

The prosecution argued in its opening temporary that the trial was performed appropriately and Bankman-Fried’s conviction and sentence imply justice was served.

Bankman-Fried’s path to victory

The onetime FTX CEO’s workforce has to show in any case that the district courtroom made a mistake in overseeing the case, Etherealize Normal Counsel Steve Yelderman advised CoinDesk.

Howard Fischer, a associate at Moses Singer, stated in an interview with CoinDesk TV that the protection’s arguments are basically “that the best way wherein the courtroom performed the trial was in itself basically unfair.”

In the course of the 2023 trial, the protection workforce made numerous motions that the district courtroom — Choose Kaplan — rejected, which the protection workforce needed to protect for the sake of this week’s enchantment.

“You need to say, ‘hey, that is prejudicial,’ or ‘hey, that is the incorrect jury instruction, I am telling you now District Court docket,'” Yelderman stated. “The district courtroom dominated towards them, after which now they’ll convey that to the Court docket of Appeals, and say, ‘no, we made this argument. The district courtroom rejected it. That was a mistake, and it was prone to have made a distinction.'”

One of many protection’s supporting arguments is that feedback that Kaplan made all through the trial about varied strains of questioning might have influenced the jury. Yelderman stated he believed this might be a troublesome argument, saying that in a 3,000 web page trial transcript, the prosecution might additionally discover feedback from the choose undermining their efforts.

“This can be a very routine listening to, and I type of do not count on a lot from this,” he stated.

Fischer stated that appellate courts “are very reluctant to disturb the best way {that a} trial courtroom performed” its trial, notably throughout an advanced case. And even when the choose did make some errors, the appellate courtroom won’t overturn the outcomes if the outcome was “nonetheless essentially truthful.”

Martin Auerbach, of counsel at Withers, advised CoinDesk that one space the panel might poke at was Bankman-Fried’s dry run earlier than he testified earlier than the jury throughout his trial.

In the course of the 2023 trial, Choose Kaplan stated he wished to listen to a few of the protection’s arguments to find out whether or not they can be permissible to debate earlier than the jury. Bankman-Fried’s legal professional on the time, white collar litigator Mark Cohen, referred to as it a “deposition.”

In its written temporary, the protection argued that, “defendants have a proper to inform the jury their facet of the story with out having to first persuade the choose to consider them. If their testimony is admissible, it’s as much as the jury to resolve whether or not it’s true.”

Auerbach stated this motion was “extraordinary,” including that “this pre-testimony — in impact, a deposition of Bankman-Fried — is fairly distinctive, and whereas a choose has all the time the discretion to stability probative worth and prejudice, this process was fairly uncommon.”

The DOJ, in its submitting, argued that there was no subject right here, and certainly district courtroom judges are required “to resolve problems with admissibility.”

The protection might persuade the circuit courtroom panel to provide the complete continuing a re-assessment due to this dry run. Particularly, the protection might attempt to argue that the choose gave extra latitude to the prosecution than the protection, which he restricted.

The panel might query whether or not this testimony functionally allowed “the federal government to have, in impact, two bites of the cross-examination apple,” or in any other case allowed a extra one-sided presentation of proof, Auerbach stated.

“For those who hear these sorts of questions, then it’d lead you to conclude that the courtroom has some concern concerning the full impartiality that each defendant is entitled to,” he stated.

Sufferer losses

Even earlier than the listening to begins, Bankman-Fried’s workforce has already misplaced a few of its arguments, due to a Supreme Court docket case determined over the summer season. The Supreme Court docket dominated unanimously in Kousisis et. al. v. United States {that a} social gathering which takes funds from one other social gathering underneath deceptive pretences could be convicted of fraud, even when the perpetrator didn’t intend to trigger financial hurt.

This cleared up an open query within the federal wire fraud statute, Yelderman stated. In Bankman-Fried’s case, his workforce has tried to argue that he didn’t intend to defraud victims and in the end folks would obtain their a refund.

Beneath this precedent, that does not matter, he stated: “You simply have to point out that you’ve got an intent to get cash for your self because the perpetrator.”

“Simply because it turned out I stole your cash, I invested it effectively, and now it is obtainable to repay you, that is no protection,” Auerbach stated.

The intent was nonetheless to take the cash within the first place, he stated. That is the place the evidentiary assessment might have come up for the appeals courtroom listening to, if the protection tried to push an argument that the choose allowed the DOJ to focus overly on FTX shedding buyer and investor funds.

“For those who suppose that what you are doing is cheap and prudent, while you misinform folks about it, that is while you contact your declare that you just’re doing something aside from defrauding them,” he stated. “So whether or not they misplaced cash or not, we will infer out of your dishonesty your intent to mislead folks and subsequently commit fraud, even when, on the finish of the day, there was cash left to pay them again.”

Appeals course of

A prolonged listening to with numerous questions could also be a great signal for Bankman-Fried, all three attorneys stated.

If the panel of judges will get deeply concerned with the listening to, asking the DOJ to clarify varied features of the case, which may be an indication that it’s contemplating whether or not to order a brand new trial, Yelderman stated.

Alternatively, if the listening to is brief and fast, “that is a reasonably good signal that the courtroom goes to be leaning towards simply affirming the conviction,” he stated.

The kinds of questions the judges ask Bankman-Fried’s workforce can even be indicative of the place they lean, Fischer stated.

Auerbach equally stated that if the panel pursues strains of questioning, that would recommend the judges have issues.

“In the event that they maintain it very narrowly inside the prescribed limits and ask the sorts of questions the place they’re difficult the protection, for instance, on what the suitable commonplace of assessment is that tells you it is in line with a cut-and-dried routine continuing,” he stated. “In the event that they suppose that that is simply very simple, it is unlikely that they’ll reverse.”

And if the judges simply let the events make their arguments with few questions and inform the attorneys that they are going to publish an opinion after they can, “that tells you numerous too,” Fischer stated.

Possibilities of a pardon

Within the occasion the enchantment is unsuccessful, Bankman-Fried and his workforce nonetheless seem like lobbying for a presidential pardon, with appearances on Tucker Carlson’s present earlier this yr and a collection of posts on X (previously Twitter) shared by a supposed good friend in latest weeks. On Thursday, his account posted a doc titled “The place Did the Cash Go” and dated Sept. 30, 2025, arguing that “FTX was by no means bancrupt.”

Even there, he has an uphill battle. Whereas U.S. President Donald Trump has pardoned numerous crypto executives this yr, together with most just lately Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, Bankman-Fried appears much less prone to obtain one.

For one factor, Zhao and his former firm Binance have enterprise ties to Trump and his household group. Bloomberg and the Wall Avenue Journal each reported that Binance workers have been concerned with creating the Trump family-linked World Liberty Monetary’s USD1 stablecoin. Different pardoned executives, like BitMEX’s Arthur Hayes, tapped lobbyists and had sympathy from the broader crypto trade.

And whereas Bankman-Fried has tried to argue he supported each Democrats and Republicans in previous elections, his status nonetheless appears to be tied to his donations to Democrats, together with his $6 million donation to former President Joe Biden’s marketing campaign — which unseated Trump after his first time period. As for Trump, Bankman-Fried reportedly mulled paying him $5 billion to not run for re-election.