FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried lost a bid to overturn his 25-year prison sentence and fraud conviction Friday, with a panel of federal appeals judges unanimously upholding the verdict.
The Manhattan-based judges, of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, picked apart Bankman-Fried’s arguments for overturning the judgment, finding each of them uncompelling.
“Bankman-Fried makes these arguments in the face of a trial at which the government’s evidence against him was, conservatively stated, robust,” the decision reads.
Much of Bankman-Fried’s appeal had hinged on claims that, even if he had misappropriated funds from FTX to cover the losses of the exchange’s sister hedge fund, Alameda Research—and to make political contributions and purchase real estate, among other personal expenditures—the company was still solvent and would have been able to repay those debts.
Today’s decision flat-out rejected that argument, citing a 2025 Supreme Court case that held a defendant commits fraud whenever they use “a material misstatement” to trick victims into handing over money, even if the fraudster does not seek to cause the victim net losses. Bankman-Fried falsified business records to conceal the ways in which he spent FTX customer funds in ways those investors had not authorized.
The appeals judges underscored how the existence of those transactions—and associated, falsified records—were never refuted by Bankman-Fried.
“Bankman-Fried does not meaningfully contest the substantial evidence the government marshalled at trial,” they said.
