Sam Bankman-Fried has asked the US Supreme Court to review his 2023 fraud conviction, his 25-year prison sentence, and an $11 billion forfeiture tied to the collapse of FTX and Alameda Research. His lawyer, Stanford law professor Jeffrey Fisher, confirmed the filing on Thursday.
The petition is a request for the justices to take up the case, not a sign that the court has agreed to hear it. The Supreme Court can decline the request without oral argument, leaving the lower-court rulings in place.
A final appeal to the top court
The filing seeks a writ of certiorari, the standard process used when a party asks the Supreme Court to review a lower court decision. For Bankman-Fried, it represents the last remaining judicial route after losing in the federal appeals court.
A jury convicted Bankman-Fried in November 2023 on charges connected to the failure of FTX and Alameda Research. In March that followed, Judge Lewis Kaplan sentenced him to 25 years in prison and ordered an $11 billion forfeiture.
Why the case reached this stage
The immediate backdrop is the June 12 decision from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which rejected Bankman-Fried’s appeal. That ruling left little room for further action outside the Supreme Court.
According to the appeals ruling, the trial judge acted properly in keeping out evidence that FTX might have been able to repay customers. As summarized in reporting on the decision, the appellate court held that customers were defrauded when their money was transferred to Alameda, regardless of whether Bankman-Fried believed he could eventually return it.
The Supreme Court petition was filed within the available deadline. After the Second Circuit mandate issued in August, a 90-day window remained to seek review from the justices.
No direct effect on creditor repayments
The Supreme Court filing does not alter the ongoing bankruptcy process. FTX creditor repayments are being handled through the bankruptcy estate, which operates separately from the criminal case against Bankman-Fried.
That distinction is central to the current posture of the case. The source article notes that many customer classes have recovered their full claims based on November 2022 valuations, but the appeals court said those later repayments do not undo the original deception alleged in the criminal proceedings.
What happens next
The justices now decide only whether to hear the case. The court receives several thousand petitions each term and accepts only a low single-digit percentage, meaning most requests are denied without a full hearing and often without any explanation beyond a brief order.
Bankman-Fried also has a separate pardon application pending, but the source article says that track has not advanced. For now, the confirmed next step is the Supreme Court’s decision on whether the petition will be granted or refused, while the FTX bankruptcy distributions continue on their own timeline.
Source: beincrypto.com