The timing could hardly be more pointed. On the same day his lawyers submitted a formal pardon request to Donald Trump, a federal appeals court settled the more pressing legal question about Sam Bankman-Fried: his conviction stands.
On June 12, a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected his challenge to the verdict. The judges found the original trial fair, upheld the 25-year sentence handed down in March 2024, and dismissed every argument his legal team put forward. Projected release date: 2044.
Defense attorneys tried two main angles. First, they argued the assets Alameda Research bought with FTX customer funds would have appreciated over time — effectively claiming no lasting harm was done. Second, they contended FTX operated as a margin trading platform, meaning customers should have expected some temporary inaccessibility of their funds. The court rejected both. "Whether the assets purchased by Bankman-Fried appreciated in value is irrelevant as to whether he committed fraud," the panel wrote. On the margin trading claim: "No one opted into having their money transferred under false pretenses to Alameda."
When FTX collapsed in November 2022, roughly $8 billion in customer deposits vanished, quietly funneled into Alameda Research without customers' knowledge. Jurors convicted Bankman-Fried in October 2023 on seven counts, including securities fraud and conspiracy. The FTX failure remains one of the largest financial frauds in American history.
He is serving his time at a low-security federal facility near Santa Barbara, California. Narrow options technically remain — a new trial motion before the district court, an en banc rehearing by the full appeals court, or a Supreme Court petition. None are likely paths to freedom. Trump told the New York Times in January 2026 that he has no plans to pardon Bankman-Fried, though a formal application is reportedly now before his administration.
